Cheryl Pope
Multicultural Education
A Class Divide by Jane Elliott “Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes experiment”
As a boy he says,”I felt like a king, like I ruled them, them brown eyes, like I was better than
them, happy.” (Peters, 1985 21:00
I have never seen this video or heard of Jane Elliott. As I began to watch the video, I became
very sad. That is truly my life, daily. At work as well as outside of work. I have tried to explain
discrimination to the dominant group, and they never validate my experiences. They make
excuses and /or tell me stories about how they have the same experiences. This is very
annoying. They don’t hear me, or do they want to understand from my eyes, what this
experience is like. The dominant group never wants to face their discrimination or racism.
People I work with, literally treat me, an African American woman, as though I am invisible.
They speak to people in front of me, behind me, however not me.
Once Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, the dominant group was on the news saying “
What are they going to do? Who is going to control your people? Treating these people as
though they are sub-human and someone was going to have to step in and control them.”
(Peters, 1985 18:00)
Now that I don’t talk or speak, I am now looked at as “the angry Black woman,” who is not a
team player. Since I am the only African American woman there, there is no one to come and
control me. I have to protect my worth and my purpose, therefore I had to shut down from
interacting with co-workers. My purpose and goal at this school is to make a difference and
assist the students with their needs.
My concern is since these professional people treat me this way, what are they doing to the
African American students? A lot of the students voice their experiences and say the teachers
are racist. The students are dismissed, because the dominant group always wants to address
behavior.
I felt the experiment needs to be taught in all schools where the dominant group is the factor.
The dominant group needs a constant reminder of what they do to the minority groups. They
need to be forced to feel how they truly tear down the confidence and self-esteem for these
minority students.
“It has been said that one person’s intellectual disability is another’s learning disability and still
another’s emotional disturbance.” (Gollnick, D. & Chinn, P., pg. 164)
The dominant group chooses to use their focus on behavior and disabilities, rather than the
racial discrimination. Even though a lot of times the intellectual, emotional and learning
disabilities are attributed to a lack of understanding the cultural dynamics of these students. The
school system (designed by the dominant group) is set up to where money comes to the school
based on these diagnoses. This is when you see a lot of minority students with IEP’s because
the dominant group rather get the money, than try to improve or teach students how to improve
their behavior!
Gollnick, D. M., & Chinn, P. C. (2021). Multicultural Education In a Pluralistic Society. 11TH
edition. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education
Peters, W. [PBS]. (1985, March 26). A Class Divided [Video]. FRONTLINE.