9/13/13 Blue-eyed Nonsense

And not the good kind.

Each semester I would share this video with my composition classes from the Frontline site, around the time we were launching into Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and attempt a discussion of unacknowledged privileged.

Jane Elliot continues, to this day, to repeat this experiment, and to this day, the shocking results play out, over and over, with adults who buy directly into the privilege of the superior group. 

She did this with an Oprah's audience in the late 80's, which is the first time I'd heard of her. It made a significant impression on me.   

So, imagine my horror at one of the current memes that has been popping into my newsfeed with alarming frequency. The first person who did it is one of those serial re-posters who doesn't give much thought to sharing absolutely every cliche and nonsense that's pasted on a picture. But then, there it was again, and again, and again. In the past two days, I've seen this thing at least a dozen times. 

The clearly implied message here? People with brown eyes are less kindhearted, don't love with all their heart, and are easily forgettable.  WTH?

And the people reposting it? Yep, except for one odd exception, were all blue-eyed. I guess People with BLUE eyes are prone to following every share command typed across the bottom of dumb pictures. Or, at least, dumb pictures that insanely privilege them over others.

I'm sure, if I turned into the Facebook Nazi and started calling people on this crap, the reactions would range from "lighten up" to "you're reading too much into this" to a defriending frenzy. Actually, now that I think about, that might not be a terrible idea...