Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes

Today's post by Andrew brought back memories for me of the day I attended a lecture by Jane Elliott renowned for her exercises in exposing the effects of prejudice and bigotry.

As I entered the auditorium for her presentation she appeared in the foyer and took my companion, Rs, aside briefly. Rs, a workmate, was a very tall, fair haired and blue eyed man. When we sat down in the auditorium Rs informed me that Ms Elliott had invited him to come up on stage when asked during the session.

When that moment came Rs was called up along with a much shorter, dark haired woman of African origin. Ms Elliott engaged them in gentle banter then asked them to face each other and to identify differences between themselves. In turn the two identified the obvious differences; height, gender, hair and eye colour but no matter how much Ms Elliott pressed neither mentioned the racial difference.

It was a fascinating demonstration of how political correctness can be taken to extremes. Ms Elliott's entire presentation was brilliant and if you have never done so it is well worth seeing the documentary in which she divides her class into two groups, the blued eyed group who have all the privileges and the brown eyed group who are downtrodden. Then the two groups exchange places. It is a real eye-opener (pardon the pun).