Film shows effects of alienation
By Johnna Walker
Daily Forty-Niner
The blue-eyed adults were placed in one
group. The brown-eyed and green-eyed were thrown into another.
The nonblue-eyed group then insulted and
demeaned the blue-eyed group.
Cal State Long Beach students and faculty
witnessed these actions on film Thursday in the University Student Union
Small Auditorium to illustrate the discrimination blacks face in society.
The film, "Blue Eyed," features Jane Elliott's
conducting a workshop for adults on racial sensitivity.
"The purpose of this exercise is to help
these people walk in the moccasins of a person of color," Elliot said.
In the film, the workshop participants
were broken into two groups -- one made up of blue-eyed individuals and
the other of those without blue eyes.
"If it makes enough sense to judge people
on a basis of their skin color, then it will make sense to judge them by
the color of their eyes," Elliot said during the film.
Upon entering the workshop, participants
were given yellow collars and then separated from the rest of the participants.
The blue-eyed individuals were told to
sit in a room where they did not have the freedom to speak to the other
group or have access to any other things they wished for.
"For two and a half hours, we are going
to make these people look inferior and feel inferior," Elliot said to the
group with brown and green eyes.
To do this, Elliot and the nonblue-eyed
group insulted the blue-eyed participants' intelligence and made other
derogatory comments to them.
The workshop also allowed interjection
from both groups, where they talked about their everyday experiences.
"Every morning when I get up and look in
the mirror, that's where my stress begins, because I am one of two black
teachers at the school where I work," said Linda, one of the African-American
participants with brown eyes.
Two of the blue-eyed participants were
moved to tears as Elliot insulted them throughout the film.
Elliot said she learned how to make these
people feel inferior by watching the way white society treats people of
color.
"I really got in touch with the incredible
injustice I am a part of, " said one blue-eyed white male who took part
in the filmed workshop.
After the film, members of the audience
reacted to the film and expressed how the issue of oppression relates to
their everyday lives.
"I am tired of being seen as white, and
as the one who is doing these things," said one CSULB student during discussion
after the film.
Others expressed their frustration as well.
"If you don't live through it, it's just
like watching a movie," said Emiliano Torres, a CSULB theater major.
"After the movie is over, you're not going
to change your life about it."
Susan Rice, a CSULB associate professor
in the social work department, acted as the mediator to the audience after
the film.
"I think we all need to know more about
what racism feels like from the inside," Rice said. |
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