Saddened by the death of Martin Luther King, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small Iowa town decided to make a difference by teaching her students a lesson on prejudice. In a very short period of time, about 15 minutes, she convinced her eight-year-old students that those with blue eyes were superior to those who had brown eyes. Later, she reversed the color of superiority. Elliott was surprised by how quickly the children turned against one another, by how cruel these otherwise pleasant children had become.

Little did she know the dramatic effect her lesson would have, not only on her students, but on the entire nation. This wasn’t a lesson on how thosepeople over there did something terrible to those other people way over there… Oh no, we have all learned that lesson. In fact, it is taught over and over again, not just by teachers, textbooks or mainstream media, but, sadly, by our egos.

It feeds our ego to think that only other people do bad things. So when we learn about people harming other people, even when we learn that people have repeatedly done certain bad things to other people, over and over again and all throughout history, our egos tell us that that was them, not us; that was then, not now.)

Jane Elliott wanted her students to understand that it was not just them but all of us, not just then but now. We are all capable of prejudice. We all sometimes lack understanding of others who are different from us. We all pass judgment on other people. We all have a need to think that we are better than someone else for various reasons: Could be our bigger bank account, class status, our religious devotion, our race, skin color, gender, or maybe… the color of our eyes.

Ms. Elliott didn’t realize when she taught this lesson so many years ago that it would make her famous and that it would impact so many people. She was invited to teach the lesson to adults and received national attention. Far from being a racist nation, the United States was doing its best to learn to do better.

So what the heck happened?

What can we learn from Elliott’s today? Why are we replacing racism with vaccine status-ism? Why are we being encouraged to segregate people based on whether or not they received a medical treatment, an injection. Should we replace racism with another type of discrimination? Should we allow discrimination against people who have different views on “vaccines,” mask mandates, digital identification systems (“vaccine passports”) or politics in general?

If so, then do you agree that employers can ask about your medical history, your eating and exercise habits, the medicines you take, the vitamins you ingest and your daily lifestyle habits that may impact your health before considering you for a job or a promotion? Do you believe that landlords should have access to this personal health info? Are you ready to change your dietary and lifestyle habits to accommodate employers, landlords, bankers, politicians and anyone else with the power and authority to snoop into your private medical history via a “vaccine passport” and, therefore, to demand you conduct your life differently?

Do you further agree that some people are simply superior to you, so they must know better than you do about what is best for you? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you: https:anchor.fm/occupyyourmind. 

"A Class Divided," Jane Elliott

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