White males fear reaping what they have sown - Jane Elliott, diversity educator
Diversity trainer and teacher Jane Elliott famously conducted the blue eye, brown eye exercise with her students to demonstrate the irrational and ridiculous constructs of racism.
CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks to world-renowned diversity trainer and teacher Jane Elliott.
Listen below:
Almost 56 years ago to the day, then-school teacher Jane Elliott conducted an exercise with her third-grade class for which she would become known the world over.
The Blue eyes/Brown eyes' exercise was designed to help her white students understand what it felt like to face discrimination - it was carried out the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Today, Elliott is a world-renowned diversity trainer and educator.
She has made it her life's work to expose prejudice and bigotry.
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On Donald Trump's re-election to the White House:
"The reason this man got re-elected, is because one of your South Africans bought that election. This last election was purchased by Lone Scum. Now you call him Elon Musk, but I call him Lone Scum because that's a description of what he really is."
- Jane Elliott, diversity educator
On the US cuts to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programmes:
"DEI is seen as a threat to pale, stale, males. They know very well that only 15-18% of human population of the earth is classified white. They're afraid that their numbers are going to be less and less and less and they are, they're becoming a minority group in the US."
- Jane Elliott, diversity educator
On Trump's offer of refugee status to white Afrikaners:
"Good lord! Look at what he is saying! In the first place, he's exposing his ignorance...The whole thing is all about money and about power and about Mr T Rump's ego."
- Jane Elliott, diversity educator
On racism as fear:
"That is the major fear of white males in this country: What if those who are other than white, when they get the power - and they ARE getting the power - what if they think we treated them the way we want to be treated ? That's the major fear of white males, that they are going to be on the receiving end of that which they have been dishing out for the last 300 years in this country."
- Jane Elliott, diversity educator
On the brown eyes/blue eyes exercise:
"The first day I did the exercise, the brown-eyed kids were on the top and they were vicious to their blue-eyed peers...On Monday when we changed the colours, I waited for the blue-eyed kids to get even...They didn't and they said we found out how it feels to be on the bottom and we didnt want anybody to feel as bad as we felt when we were on the bottom."
- Jane Elliott, diversity educator
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full interview from Good Morning Cape Town