Jane Elliott was a 3rd grade teacher working in Riceville in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.
“Every time I remember that day, I get literally sick to my stomach because Martin Luther King Jr. had been one of our heroes of the month in February, and he was dead at the hands of an assassin in April,” Elliott said. “And I had to go into my classroom and explain to my students why this country, which we call the land of the free and the home of the brave, had taught us all with that killing that some people aren't free and the others have to be brave.”
Living in an all white and all Christian community, Elliott wanted her students to understand what discrimination actually felt like. The day after the killing, she introduced the students to the blue eyes/brown eyes exercise, which the children initially said sounded fun.
Based on if the children had brown or blue eyes, one group would be treated as superior and smart, while the other would be disparaged and generalized based on their physical attributes. The next day, the group that had the power would then be subjected, and the previously oppressed group would become the privileged group.
The first time she did the exercise, she told the class that brown eyed people are superior to blue eyed people. The next day blue-eyed students got to be on top. Initially the blue-eyed students said they would get back at the brown-eyed students, but when it was their turn to have the power, they didn’t want to, because they knew how it felt to be on the bottom.
“We have got to realize that people of color don't want to get even with us, they want to get equity,” Elliott said. “My third graders taught me that. I should have taught that to them, they taught it to me.”
In this country, we tell people they have magic skin, and people succeed because of the color of their skin, oftentimes, and people fail to succeed because of what we say to them about the color of their skin.Jane Elliott
Elliott repeated the exercise with other groups of students and then with adults. She also gave tests during the exercise. She found that on the day dyslexic students were treated as a privileged group that could do no wrong, the students were able to spell and read in ways they never could before. Meanwhile, CEOs of major companies made simple spelling errors on the day they were part of the oppressed group.
“On the day those kids were on the top in that exercise, they performed in ways that they had never before, because I told them they had magic eyes,” Elliott said. “In this country, we tell people they have magic skin, and people succeed because of the color of their skin, oftentimes, and people fail to succeed because of what we say to them about the color of their skin.”
Elliott, who was born in 1933, said she watched her father be infuriated by the rise of Hitler in her childhood, and now she sees the same things that infuriated her father about Hitler being repeated in this country today.
Additionally, teaching about racism and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are being legislated away. Under Iowa’s “divisive concepts” law, teachers cannot teach that the U.S. and Iowa are systemically racist or sexist.
“Teachers are afraid now, more afraid than ever. They're afraid to do the kinds of things that I did, because the people in power right now are the kind who would say, ‘Don't be doing that. You're not going to do that with my kids.’”
Elliott’s own children were bullied and harassed as a result of her eye color exercise. Her family moved 14 miles away so they could attend a different school than where Elliott was teaching. Now 91, her conviction to educate and stand up to racism is as strong as ever.
“An educator is one who leads people out of ignorance,” Elliott said. “And the number one ignorance in the United States of America is the ignorance of racism.”
