Brown-eyed Blue-eyed Exercise

Prejudice is something that has existed for a long time all over the world and discrimination is not pleasant to feel. To experience discrimination is a feeling of being violated. There was an exercise that was performed in schools, prisons, and even on the Oprah Show to examine prejudice.

                                               

                                             ***Good News***

 1. What Is Prejudice?

According to the dictionary prejudice is a preconceived opinion or feeling, possibly hostile nature regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.

2. Is Prejudice inherited?

Have you really thought about it? Babies are born innocent. They learn about prejudice in various different ways. Prejudice is taught. According to rd.com you may think of yourself as a person striving to be unprejudiced, but in reality you can’t control split-second reactions that may show negative words and Black faces are paired, which may suggest racially biased messages from the culture around you which have shaped your wiring of your brain.

3. Exercise

I first saw this exercise when I was in college. This exercise was used as a basis to help children understand about prejudices and how they exist. Several years later the same group of children were brought together as adults to discuss the experiment that was done. They discussed how it affected them and how it gave them perspectives as adults.

The same experiment was done in a prison with adults. It was amazing to see that there were only a few prisoners that actually stood up and said, “That is a bunch of crap.” Then there were those that were actually believing and agreeing that brown-eyed people were better and more smarter than brown-eyed people by offering excuses to support their statements.

Brown-eyed Blue-eyed Review on YouTube Shown below

https://youtu.be/ebPoSMULI5U

One thing that I took away from Jane Elliott is that she said, “God created the races, but humans created racism.”

4. Black Lives Matter

There are those that are saying, “All Lives Matter.” The only problem with that is that if all lives mattered there would not be the innocent killing of blacks at the hands of law enforcement. Law enforcement should protect all not just some. Even though laws are in place the law itself seemingly is only enforced sometimes not all times and on some law breakers not all law breakers. There is a double standard in America. People are tired of the oppression that has gone on for years. The legal system is grossly misused at times. Blacks receive harsher sentences in comparison to whites that may commit harsher crimes. In other words it is a different type of slavery, but it is slavery.

5. My First Experience with Racism

I recall at age 15 traveling south to a National Baptist Convention with a deacon and his wife from our church. I needed to use the restroom. The deacon stopped at a small gas station. The owner came out and met us with a shotgun. The deacon asked where the restroom was. The owner replied, “Someone just stole the key and ran away up in those mountains.” We politely left.

6. How You are Treated

I recall a conversation my daughter and her best friend had. My daughter is very light skinned while her friend was very dark. My daughter shared an experience she had with someone judging her by the color of her skin. My daughter’s best friend replied, “I get judged all the time by the color of my skin.” “You are just finding out what it feels like.” I guess I had really sheltered by children a good portion of their life and attempted to raise them not to judge others by the color of their skin, but I neglected to prepare them that there would be many that will judge them by their color.

7. Working

I used to have a co-worker and her name was Betty.  Her cubicle was right next to mine.  We were good friends and I considered her a just and fair person. Clients would get us mixed up by having the same first name. We would have a running joke that we were salt and pepper. At her funeral her children shared that she would always stand up for injustice. That was who she was. They shared a young black boy needed to use the restroom and the attendant at a train station kept ignoring the boy. They told me Betty grab the boy’s hand and went up to the attendant and demanded to know where the restroom was. She then took him there.

8. Prejudice within Your Own Race

There has even been prejudice within our own race. I have seen light-skinned relatives call darker relatives black. That did indeed initiate a conversation at the time. There was no time for me to wait until later. Address the issue then. There is a difference between preference and stereo-typing. I have known friends that prefer dark-skinned men over light-skin black men and visa versa. I have known friends that prefer tall men as oppose to short men. Myself included. I have been guilty. It is important to not stereo-type but learn to know people before assuming things because of their color or height. There are those that stereo-type large or skinny people. I once had a large man dance with me and tell me, “ You need some meat on your bones.” He then asked me for a second dance and I replied, “ No thank you I need some meat on my bones. (lol)

9. Different types of Prejudices

According to verywell-minded.com prejudices can be based on Racism, sexism, ageism, classism (your social class status), Homophobia (feelings toward lesbian, gays, or transgender), Nationalism, religious prejudice, or xenophobia (dislike of people from other countries). They further add that you can reduce prejudice by gaining public support and awareness for anti-prejudice social norms and making people aware of the inconsistencies in their own beliefs.

10. The Leader

When a leader does not address a major issue that tells you something about that leader. When a leader does not address the systemic racism in the country that tells you something about the leader. I do not agree with the violence, but it seems the leader is more concerned with the looting and violence rather than the root cause of it. Addressing the root of a problem is so essential. People are angry because they feel the leader does not care. When a person shows you who they are, believe them.

Finally, being prejudiced is a problem that exists and should be continually opened for discussion.

Photo Caption: Commons, wikimedia.org., Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

Source:

prejudice 

The Psychology of How We Learn Prejudice: Are We Natural-Born Racists?

https://www.rd.com/article/psychology-of-prejudice-racism/

How People’s Prejudices Develop

 

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