Racism: Documentary Analysis Essay

Introduction

The documentary begins by giving a brief scene and description of Martin Luther King a civil rights leader assassination and arrest. A third-grade teacher in an interview, explains the events and how she tried to change the student's racism mindset. The scene begins with a class reunion which occurred in August 1984, where the former students begun by watching a documentary which they were featured in named as "the eye of a storm document" by ABC news which was on a discrimination lesson. The lesson began where Jane Elliot conducted a brown and blue eyes exercise which created emotions among the students and thus learning a lot about prejudice and discrimination. After watching, the former students later discussed their experiences on what the lesson had taught them. The documentary also featured a prison facility where the staff of the correction department attended a workshop where Jane Elliot conducted the blue eyes and brown eyes exercise which stroke behavioral emotions among the brown and blue-eyed groups. The brown-eyed were made to look superior and aggressive .The Blue-eyed became unhappy, unbelieving and emotionally humiliated and they felt humiliated and treated harshly. Throughout the documentary, Jane is seen to be authoritative. At the end of the clip, Jane is interviewed on her method and on critiques surrounding the approaches she uses.

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Jane Elliot's Connection of Prejudicial Attitude to Racism

Both blue and brown eyes experiment of Jane Elliot exposes prejudice as an irrational system that is based on the arbitrary physical character. She conducts legendary blue eyes and brown eyes experiment on both the prison staff and student to prove that racism is a behavior that is learned and not part of genetic.

Features That Jane Elliot Ascribed To Inferior and Superior Groups And How Those Characteristics Reflected Black and White Stereotypes

The features that Jane ascribed to be an inferior and superior group is the black and brown-eyed prisoners' staff and students. This characteristics reflects the white and black stereotype and build ideas in the minds of the people which creates actual barriers that are said to be hard to overcome. There seem to be rebellious behaviors like when the blue-eyed adult argued with Jane when they were attacked for their bad behavior when a blue-eyed was considered rude. However, a better way of evaluating the situations is to look at the environment placed on the discriminated group. This experiment of Jane Elliot demonstrates how a human becomes confused with perceptions and sensation that is created in the mind. Therefore becoming hard to overcome the stereotyping when there is this illusion in our minds. This same stereotype damn the blacks as only fulfilling low expectations in the society and gives an impression of white people as the superior group.

Concepts and Meaning of Used By Elliott To Understand Race Relations To Contemporary America

Stereotype

The stereotype is a generalization of a group. It can be based on age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. This characteristic can be positive although they are often negative. The new stereotype is rarely created but they are recycled from the assimilated subordinate group in a society and are thus reused in describing the newly subordinate group. Example of a stereotype in America is the stereotype used to characterize the blacks in American history among Eastern European immigrants and Irish. (Openstax college, 2015).

Discrimination

Discrimination refers to action against people on basis of their religion, age, health, and other indicators. In the US this is evidence of overt discrimination which has been a part of their history. Example it was common to find business signs which read" Help Required and No Irish Need To Apply", and "Whites Only" signs on the laws of southern Jim Crow.

Racism

Racism is a strong prejudice that justifies a belief that one group is superior or inferior to the other. It is used in justifying a belief that one category is superior or inferior to the other. It is used by some racial categories in disadvantaging a racial minority. Example Ku Klan a racist organization is composed of members who believe that the supremacy of white has encouraged hate speech and crime over the century.

Prejudice

Prejudice is a bias which is based on assumptions about a certain group of people.Prejudice includes thoughts, beliefs, attitude, and feelings a person has about a group.It is not based on individual experience but it's a prejudgement that originates outside the experience.

References

OpenStax College. (2015). Introduction to Sociology 2e. Houston Texas.