The lazy, ignorant Blue Eyes vs. the superior Brown Eyes
Thirty unsuspecting young people enter an old factory-like building. They signed up to participate in a TV-show without any prior knowledge about its content. Soon enough they will find themselves taking part in a shocking social experiment.
Video: The Big Racism Experiment
On entry, show-host Seyda Buurman-Kutsal immediately sets the tone by dividing the participants into two groups: the blue-eyes and the brown-eyes. The blue-eyes are received with awful treatment. After being commanded and humiliated by the tyrannical Seyda, they’re sent off to a room, where they’ll be spending the next three hours. No food or drinks. No explanation. “It felt like a concentration camp in Nazi-Germany where people were divided into Jews and non-Jews,” said Ivania, one of the blue-eyed participants. The brown-eyes on the other hand receive a welcoming smile. They’re allowed to pass straight through and take place in a circle. No questions asked.
After a long wait, the blue-eyes are invited to join the circle where Seyda’s is convincing the brown-eyes, in only a few hours that they are better, nicer and more intelligent than the blue-eyes. She glorifies them, whilst talking down to the blue-eyes: “Blue-eyes are liars. Are blue-eyes trustworthy? Prime-minister Rutte is a blue-eye. And what about those bankers ? All blue-eyes.” The blue-eyes are getting more and more upset to the point of rebellion, crying and walking out. Even though most of them are trying to keep strong and deal with Seyda’s horrible treatment, there’s no rewards or positive effects whatsoever in the way they are approached. They feel excluded, humiliated and highly uncomfortable.
Bleu-eyes are lazy
Pity or Payback?
Throughout the show the blue-eyes are treated inferior. The bossy Seyda treats the blue-eyes as lazy, ignorant individuals, whilst she tries to win the trust and sympathy of the brown-eyes. They set the rules about how the blue-eyes are being treated. The brown-eyes are left with mixed feelings. The position of inferiority in which the blue-eyes find themselves is very recognisable to the real-life experience of the brown-eyes. “Applying for job interviews, I’m often positively approached until I physically arrive at the job interview”, says mixed-raced Cindy. Another brown-eyed participant says “It’s tiring having to defend myself over and over again. How many times have I heard I’m Moroccan ? I’m not, I’m Hindu. And based on that perception I’m automatically being disadvantaged”. The brown-eyed are aware how unpleasant the blue-eyed must feel at the moment. However, some of the brown-eyes get satisfaction from finally finding themselves on the other side of the racism spectrum.
If you were in my shoes…
When the brown-eyes are asked how they saw the blue-eyes during the show, they could not come up with anything other than negative words due to Seyda’s indoctrination, telling them that blue-eyes are inferior. They called them sad, frustrated, alone. However, the blue-eyes had many positive qualities throughout the show. Despite Seyda’s horrible treatment, the blue-eyes showed patience, endurance and remained calm. It was a tough challenge, but they kept going. The brown-eyes didn’t pick up on any of that. Not only because they saw the blue-eyes as inferior, but also they didn’t understand their feelings as they weren’t approached by Seyda in the same negative way. The brown-eyes ended up feeling ashamed of the fact that they didn’t stand up for the bleu-eyes even though some acknowledged being in their shoes in their daily lives. This shame shows how people can easily be influenced by group behavior and power.
Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes
The Big Racism Experiment is based on a social experiment created over thirty years ago, just after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Former school teacher Jane Elliot created the experiment to show her eight-year old students how unfair racism is. Instead of skin color she decided to divide the children based on their eye-color. Although an awful experience for both parties, this social experiment is a real eye-opener. It shows that people are treated differently in society just by the way they look. A lesson learned the hard way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SpF3cwJ86A
Racism: nurture or nature?
The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment proves that discrimination is a trait of the human mind. Racism is within all of us. We distinguish people automatically and see some as superior and some as inferior. Preconceptions exist in our society in what might be called a “dormant” state. According to Psychologist Steven Pont personalisation is the key. “It’s easy for a person to say that he hates all Moroccans. But not my Moroccan neighbor Ahmed, he’s such a good guy, ” he says. Group characteristics are being applied to the individual, until the individual becomes someone you know very well. Seyda states that racism is learned behavior. Society imprints concepts in people’s mind about certain groups or ethnicities. She says that it’s an unconscious choice of society for a certain type of person to have power. In the Netherlands, the blue-eyed, white, preferably Christian male is the privileged one that will find it easier to progress in society, solely on the basis of his appearance.
There’s more than one lesson to be learned from this show:
– It’s hard to understand how it feels to be discriminated against if you are not approached in the same way.
– Racism is within all of us. Complete elimination is impossible, reducing it to a minimum is the key.
– Racism is to a great extent learned behavior. This means it can be unlearned. Racism is a choice.
About the Author
It’s time to stop referring to this BE-BE exercise as an ‘experiment.’ An experiment is designed to learn something from the participants. This exercise is designed to teach the participants something about how it feels to be judged on the basis of a physical characteristic over which we have no control. The facilitator creates a microcosm of society in a classroom, for a few hours and plays the part of a racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, ethnocentrist indivual, whose power depends, not on intelligence or talent, but on the willingness of the participants to go along in order to get along. This is an educational experience, or exercise, and the responses you are seeing proves that it works in the Netherlands, just as it has worked in the US and other places for 45 years. Just as all the -isms have worked all over the world for far too long.
Thanks very much for your clarification. The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experience has been eye-opening for me and with me many others that have seen it on Dutch Television. I’m very impressed and thankful for your work as an anti-racism activist.
I agree that racism is a learned behavior. Here, we start to dive into psychology. The thing that comes to mind is mob/herd mentality. In a nutshell, when you associate yourself with a group of people (political party, race, religion, economic status, nationality, etc.), you inherently lose the ability to think entirely for yourself. There are some good psych books on this topic.
E.G. My father was in the US military and experienced quite a bit of racism while in service. Because of his experiences, he’s expressed his resentment towards white people in the US on a few occasions while I was growing up so I understand the frustration. Naturally I thought I was supposed to feel the same way and to that I’ll say there’s no greater impediment to progress than blindly accepting the ideas and beliefs of others around you and the groups you associate with.
OK, you’re Dutch… so I learned about Zwarte Piet a few months ago. This character would be found extremely offensive to both blacks and whites in the US and from conversations I’ve had, it’s becoming more offensive in the Netherlands too. I know the US and Netherlands are two different cultures that probably have their own roots that have stemmed the racism we experience today, but it would be interesting to see how the next generations view this character. Will they find it offensive or will they accept it as a child’s character that is part of Dutch culture? I think finding answers to questions like that might give us a good indicator on where society is headed on the racism front.
Kudos to you Jane for coming up with this so people of other races can actually FEEL and understand what it’s like. You’re a teacher who actually cares and is teaching an invaluable lesson.
Thanks for your comment Marcus, and excuse me for late reply.
It’s funny that you mention the differences in countries with regards to racism. I watched the Dutch, UK and US-version of the Bleu-eyed/Brown-eyed experience. In the UK one, the brown-eyes are much milder and less willing too participate in the discrimination towards the bleu-eyes. Perhaps because discrimination is present to a lesser degree than in the US?
The Zwarte Pieten discussion in the Netherlands is extremely relevant. That was THE #1 topic in the Netherlands for a couple of months and perhaps even the reason for airing this TV show. I grew up with this annual party and found it normal as a child. However, as an adult I totally understand how offensive the characters are and how this might influence and condition children to think a certain way. The debate will inevitably come back next year and hopefully this party will be adapted to fit our society as it is today.
“- Racism is within all of us. Complete elimination is impossible, reducing it to a minimum is the key.
– Racism is to a great extent learned behavior. This means it can be unlearned. Racism is a choice.”
There is a contradiction here.
If racism is a choice, the you can chose not to be racist. But then you say that “racism is within all of us.”
It is confusing.
Hi Jeff, thanks for your comments.
The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment proves that discrimination is a trait of the human mind, and we can therefore say that racism is within all of us. However, to a much larger extent, racism is learned behavior as Seyda Buurman-Kutsal explains during the show. Society imprints concepts in people’s mind about certain groups or ethnicities. The largest proportion of racism is learned behavior and can therefore be unlearned.