Jane Elliott’s Brown-eyed/Blue-eyed People. A Class Divided.

My personal encounter with Jane Elliott’s exercise in racism and segregation was through a friend of mine who teachers diversity training at Outward Bound. Shirley convinced me to attend a “couple” of days training through experiential learning on a place called Thompson Island, which is located right off of Boston harbor.

I met Shirley McGill at a four-day conference in Florida at SGI’s Florida Nature and Culture Center; Shirley was attending the education sessions and I was attending the legal sessions.  We struck up a conversation between sessions and became instant life-long friends.  Shirley, an educator and diversity trainer/consultant, kept talking about Thompson Island and the Outward Bound diversity training course, team building and so on.  Finally, after about six months of hearing about this course, I decided to take it.

Quite frankly, I felt I really did not need “diversity” training.  Waking up every morning and looking in the mirror at myself was all the diversity training I needed.  It was March and I love the ocean and being on the water so I figured what could possibly go wrong.  It was a pivotal experience; especially the “outdoors” part.  We had a blizzard on the island one night.  The training sessions required climbing up and down a mile long trail between the rustic dormitories (no heat on the weekend, no place to get that venti mocha latte with soy no whip).  Sessions ended at 9:00 pm at night and maneuvering up the ice-covered dirt paths with only a stick to brace oneself was an experience in itself.  Taking cold showers at the crack of dawn was not on my agenda either.  And getting cell phone signals was often difficult to achieve. The first night, I called Shirley — she was staying someplace nice and warm — and said as soon as the boat arrived in the morning, this city-girl was homeward bound.

Needless to say, Shirley convinced me to stay and soon struggling with the elements took a back seat to the exercises in life-learned, institutionalized racism, sexism and phobias too many to list.  It was during these training sessions that we watched in full Jane Elliott’s documentary, A Class Divided. Jane Elliott’s training has been used in the work place, in prison systems and more.  I strongly recommend this training for Palin and the party of no.

A Class Divided Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six.

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