Jane Elliott, shown here in 2009, remains an outspoken advocate against racism. Elliott was featured on nearly every national news show in America for decades. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiment’s alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. They embraced the experiment’s reductive message, as well as its promised potential, thereby keeping the implausible rationale of Elliott’s crusade alive and well for decades, however flawed and racist it really was. The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. Elliott went after “Ken” and “Barbie” all day long, drilling, accusing, ridiculing them, to make the point that whites make baseless judgments about Blacks all the time, Pasicznyk said.Įlliott championed the experiment as an “inoculation against racism.” “Barbie” had to have a Ken, so Elliott picked from the audience a tall, handsome man and accused him of doing the same things with his female subordinates, Pasicznyk said. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.” “That’s how it started, and that’s how it went all day long. “Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me ‘Barbie,’” Pasicznyk told me. Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the company’s suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliott’s workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, she’d have to attend. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. ![]() Jane Elliott at Riceville, Iowa, Elementary School in 1968. She has since refused to answer any of my inquiries. But when she discovered that I was asking pointed questions of scores of her former students, as well as others subjected to the experiment, she made an about-face and said she no longer would cooperate with me. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. For many, the experiment went horribly awry. To get her points across, Elliott hurled insults at workshop participants, particularly those who were white and had blue eyes. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. Unsettling insultsĮlliott turned into America’s mother of diversity training. She appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” five times. She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. and Canada, but in Europe, the Middle East and Australia. The 1970s and 1980s were ripe for diversity education in the private and public sectors, and Elliott would try out the experiment at workshops on tens of thousands of participants, not just in the U.S. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. The nonstop parade of sickening events such as the murder of George Floyd surely is not going to be abated by a quickie experiment led by a white person for the alleged benefit of other whites – as was the case with the blue-eyed, brown eyed experiment. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. The roots of racism – and why it continues unabated in America and other nations – are complicated and gnarled. ![]() Subsequent research designed to gauge the efficacy of Elliott’s attempt at reducing prejudice showed that many participants were shocked by the experiment, but it did nothing to address or explain the root causes of racism. ![]() Stripping away the veneer of the experiment, what was left had nothing to do with race. ![]() They didn’t need to engage with a single Black person.īut in reality, I found in researching for my book “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes” that the experiment was a sadistic exhibition of power and authority – levers controlled by Elliott. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. It seemed to evince that all white people had to do to learn about racism was restrain themselves from an impulse to engage in made-up cruelty. To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. Charlotte Button A darker sideīut Elliott’s experiment had a more sinister impact. Jane Elliott on ‘The Tonight Show’ on May 31, 1968.
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