[Note: Apologies if anyone has had difficulties with video playback. The problem's been promptly fixed.]
I know it’s lazy blog etiquette, but posting this video’s better than anything I could even think about writing this week.
Watch as a classroom of entirely innocent young children are unfairly divided and turned against each other because of arbitrary differences in their eye colour. The teacher driving the segregation – Jane Elliott, a retrospectively well-known anti-racism activist, Feminist, and LGBT rights campaigner – aimed not, obviously, to add to the lamentably long list of seemingly prejudice-worthy traits, but instead to make a simple point about the nature of such irrational antipathy; that is, in the case of racism, “You are not born a racist. You have to carefully be taught to be one.”
Fairness is a tough message for the kids to take in, but a very important one.
So, for those who desperately needed yet sadly missed out on an Elliott-style enlightenment at school (and as a result still fail to understand basic human compassion), allow yourselves to learn the lesson now.
The rest of you nice people just enjoy…
~ Carnun
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