Jane Elliott

This is one awesome lady. In your face righteous indignation regarding Racism.

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The notion that humans are members of different races has been accepted universally for over 250 years. Before that time we were one race made up of different colors with different physical features that were results of different environments, available foods, what climate we lived and grew up in. We all can trace our DNA back to Africa.

I think it was in college when I first heard the truth. Recently, I have been reminded of the truth that flies in the face of well entrenched common false perceptions.

Scientific efforts to break down Humanity into different races really gained momentum in the 19th century which conveniently coincided with efforts to justify the marginalization, conquest, exploitation and enslavement of people who were not white.

The uncomfortable questions regarding the European assault on the rest of the world had to be justified to keep mamby pamby do gooder losers from stirring up a bigger fuss. Nip it in the bud so to speak. These questions could no longer be brushed off.

The golden age of Science and Technology had begun. Scientists were called upon to study and justify scientifically, the racial assumptions used at the time  that European and American leaders used to excuse the rabid exploitation of the rest of the World. They were expected to prove that non-whites were less than human. These poor wretches would only prosper through the stewardship of the superior White Men of the West and their obviously surperior religion, Christianity. With Science and Christianity at their backs, the status quo was easier to maintain and cement into law and even expand.

These new "scientific" explanations became some of the bedrock principles of modern day White Supremacy. Their doctored "proof" contended the planet would be better served under White leadership. White folk were superior Homo sapiens; they just proved it, did they not? As the white locusts invaded and subjugated the rest of the World, they created noble and grand reasons why it was preordained that Caucasians should be in charge.

Here we are approximately 250 years later living and still dealing with that lie that we are not all the same. And sadly, along with accepting the idea of multiple races, we seem to have allowed the ugly baggage of racial superiority to continue to poison human relationships based on stupid lines drawn up by scientists putting a conclusion first and then creating the facts to support that conclusion.

**A few days ago, I came across a 30 second abridged video on Facebook that focused on this subject. An educator named Jane Elliott insisted that we are one race, not several.

I looked into her background and she has walked the walk since at least 1968 when she came up with the “Blue eyes & Brown eyes” exercise; an exercise that now days if she tried it in a third grade classroom, she might not just lose her job, but probably be in serious legal trouble also.

The “Blue eyes & Brown eyes” exercise was an exercise she came up with the day after Martin Luther King was shot in 1968. She wanted to teach her class of white third graders what it might feel like to be black.

On a Monday she broke the class into two groups: one group, kids with blue eyes and the other, children with brown and green eyes. The first half of the exercise would last the rest of the week. She told the brown eyed kids they were better, smarter, and prettier than the blue eyed children. Everything about them was better than those blue eyed losers. The following Monday she switched the groups around and insisted the brown eyed kids were now the inferior children for the week. At the conclusion of the exercise, she asked all of them how that separation made them feel. Predictably, they were not impressed when they were considered inferior. They did enjoy though the feeling of being considered superior. (Note- one version I read said the test was all in one day. I stuck with the one above)

Jane Elliott did not make any friends in her little town of Riceville, Iowa. She was ostracized and vilified from both sides of the political spectrum. What she did was considered too damaging to those poor white children’s minds. Regardless, she eventually gave up teaching children and took her show on the road and has been running workshops, meetings, and lectures for adults in government, the corporate jungle and neighborhoods ever since.

Jane insists that if not for the expansionist assholes 250 years ago who built arbitrary and fake barriers based on irrelevant standards like skin color , where someone came from, etc., the planet would be in much better shape and our populations, much further along in their advancements, socially and politically.

Jane has dedicated her life to her "One Race" idea. She has written numerous books and recorded many of her exercises and interviews over the years. Check her out. She is a very interesting lady.

That which divides us was forced on us long ago. It is time we stopped buying into the multi-race lie.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..................................................

**A Jane Elliott video

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Music Prompt - "Music about Racism" - And this popped up. From a music festival from over 40 years ago, here is Bob Marley with "War". And just because I also really like this other tune, included for  the two-fer on this post is War with their tune, "Why Can't We Be Friends".