speedphreak

I had to go through "diversity" training today at work. Standard corporate boilerplate. Blah, blah, blah. There was one pretty cool video though. It was an old news report from the late sixties on a grade school class out in an all white, small town in Iowa (I think). It was rather interesting, Mrs. Elliot, the third grade teacher divided up the class of kids according to eye color. Brown eyes and blue eyes. For the experiment she told them that blue eyed kids were superior to brown eyes. Blue eyed kids were allowed to drink from the water fountain where as brown eyed one had to drink form a cup. Blue eyes could play on the playground equipment while brown eyed ones couldn't. She constantly reinforced the fact that blue eyes were smarter and better than brown eyes. It was amazing to watch the class fall apart and split along eye color lines. Brown eyed kids got slower on their class work and were less active. Tempers flared and names were called.

The next day, the teacher reversed the roles and the same thing happened the other way.

It was real interesting to watch.