Interview with Jane Elliott: Inspiring Activism Webinar

i am mark acres director of the institute for child development and family relations and it is my distinct honor today to introduce our guest long-term anti-racism activist miss jane elliott in response to the assassination of dr martin luther king jr in 1968 jane elliott then an elementary school teacher devised the blue eyes brown eyes exercise this now famous exercise labeled participants as inferior or superior based solely on the color of their eyes and exposed them to the experience of arbitrary discrimination since that time miss elliott has dedicated her life to anti-racism activism as an educator a diversity consultant as a speaker her message has inspired millions the icdfr has been fortunate to host miss elliott here at csusb to speak on campus and to our campus community and local communities several times over the last decade each time she has been here and spoken the audience has been overwhelmingly moved by her passion her brutal honesty and emotion and her personal challenge to each of us to recognize acknowledge and confront racism she's back today to share her message and to talk about her lifetime of anti-racism activism today's conversation with miss elliott will be facilitated by dr kelly campbell who is the associate director of the icdfr so as i turn the event over to kelly i will simply say miss elliott welcome again to csusb thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your wisdom kelly my thanks to you as well hey thank you mark and welcome everybody and ms elliott so thrilled to have you with us so we've had some questions submitted as people registered for the event and we have lots to ask you so i'm just going to jump right into our first question people would like to know from your perspective how has racism changed over the past 50 years have things improved or gotten worse it was getting better and then barack obama was elected president and i thought now i can give up doing this because people are getting sensible i didn't realize that once we got a black man in the white house that 30 of the population of the united states who believe in the myth of three or four different races were angered and absolutely determined to see to it that that man would not be successful as a president of the united states and would not be re-elected well he was re-elected and then mitch mcconnell and company decided that they would do everything they could to get somebody in the white house who would not be in favor of anything anything that barack obama did or proposed and there would we would have our future president would be someone who was like that 30 percent of the population in the united states a racist sexist ageist homophobic ethnocentric boy grown tall and that's what we have in the white house right now and the reason he's there is because 30 percent of the population in the united states believes in the myth of more than one race if the if you folks today don't get anything else out of this you realize this there's only one race of people on the face of the earth and those are homo sapiens we are all members of the same race and you need to realize that we are all descendants of those first modern human beings we evolved in between three hundred thousand five hundred thousand years ago in sub-saharan africa and you also need to realize that those brilliant people moved from the area of the equator north south east and west and as they moved from that area and moved farther and farther north to populate every land mass on the face of the earth their skin their hair and their eyes got lighter because they were exposed to less sunlight so their bodies produce less melanin that is the reason for skin color people it's not because we have caucaside and what's the other one whatever the other one we name races there's only one race we are all homo sapiens now every one of us has some of those other other races in us because those people united with people who with with other races for instance there are many people who are part neanderthal and you can always tell in neanderthal because they are inclined to abdominal fat they are bullish and brutish and bullying and have orange hair now i think you can remember that you the next time you see someone who looks like that remember you're dealing with a neanderthal and don't get too excited next question okay you you bring a very unique perspective because of your focus but also you've lived longer than many people in the webinar so we really value that that that perspective i have lived longer than most of the people on the face of the earth i'm fully aware of that but and i would like to go elsewhere but i can't until we solve the problem of racism we could solve the problem of racism with education if we would educate people properly if we would stop for instance if we would stop using words like white and black for skin color this skin that you're looking at in me is not white my shirt's white my hair is white my skin is not every person on the face of the earth is a shade of brown because we are all descendants of those first modern human beings who had a lot of melanin in their skin but when you when the during the spanish inquisition when they decided which people they could kill because they found out they had killed a whole lot of christians because you couldn't tell what a person's religion was by looking at them so at that point they set upon skin color and that's when they decided to call the top group the people who they couldn't kill white and the people that they were allowed to kill black now black and white are polar opposites if a child grows up thinking that he's black if he has read if he's ever read a a story a nursery mind or a folk tale he's find out he's found out that white is the color of purity and goodness and black is the color of evil how dare we continue to call people white and black when we know the difference my dad would say to me you know the difference between right and wrong now do the right thing god damn it it's time for us to change how we describe ourselves and other people and stop defining people as either white or black because no such person exists i have seen lots and lots of so-called black people and most of them are black-haired and their skin doesn't match their hair for the most part i've only seen two people in the 86 years that i've been alive whose skin matched their hair they were truly black but they came from the same ancestors that you and i did so let's just get over it and they recognize that they have to call me white even though i'm not to me white is not a compliment it's a misnomer and we ought to get over it okay completely agree and language is powerful okay here's our next question absolutely somebody has said words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind and if you can use two words white and black to force people to think the way you want them to think for 500 over 500 years those are powerful words we need to get rid of them now a whole lot of black young people are going to say i don't want to give up my blackness you don't have to give her blackness but you have to realize that your skin color is not your race your skin color is your skin color there are hundreds and hundreds of skin colors in the human race but that is not your race you are not a member of the black race you are a member of the human race and you pale faces are not a member of the white race you're a member of the white color group you are not a member of the white race because there is no such thing now i can say this and i don't have to worry about you responding and yelling at me because i can't hear it if you've got something to yell yell it into your cell phone later okay what's your next question okay you have been a lifelong activist what is your advice for people who share your concerns regarding racism and want to be an activist prepare to suffer prepare to lose your friends prepare to you lose your image as a calm reasonable quiet accepting go along to get along person prepare to have to fight to get your message out on the other hand prepare to know that you have attempted to make life better not only for the present but for the future realize that in within 30 years what we call white people will be a numerical minority in the united states of america within 30 years white people will be a numerical minority therefore you need to realize that within 30 years this country will be run by people of color and you had best start treating them fairly now you pale faces because you are going to be on the receiving end if you aren't careful of what you have done today in the future we need to get people of color and women ready to run this show and they can believe me they were until 10 000 years ago and if you have read naomi will's book about that i can't remember the name of it but it tells you what when this whole business of sexism started or choosing only males for important jobs females can do those jobs now another thing you need to do go to my website janet jane elliott dot com download the printed learning materials the first is a set of typical statements that white folks make that think they aren't racist go through that list and check it to check those put an x before those that that's those statements that represent your present beliefs and all before those that represent your previously held beliefs then turn to the next page which is the clarifications those statements how they are heard by the person that you're saying them to after you do that go to the third page which is a set of commitments to combat racism 18 things that you can do in your own environment in your own life as a human one person to change your beliefs about racism and the behaviors of of the people who have to be in your presence go through that check one check to check yes or no if you have done them or not and then go back and circle one that you checked no put the date beside it and do it for a month if you do that and you finally go through all 18 of those you will find out that you have changed your attitude you'll change your behavior you'll change the kind of people you want to be around and the kind of people who want to be around you and you will also have changed the environment and now you're thinking well racism is a societal problem no societies are made up of individuals racism is an individual problem every one of you can change the level of racism in your community in your family in your home and in yourself by by doing it in a determined way by setting yourself up to do it and if you if you are a failure in the eyes of your friends change friends quickly great tip and i love that you have those practical tips okay there's something else they have to do you have to read the national geographic magazine for april of 2018. go to the library insist that the college library get this magazine and have it on the shelf you see these two girls here their father is black their mother is white would you call them biracial there's only one race of people on the face of the earth these girls are not biracial they have a black father and a white mother that doesn't mean they're biracial they are mosaic a mosaic is an art form that is new beautiful unique and made of many different elements and that's what these girls are that makes a whole lot more sense than biracial because they're both members of the same race but their parents came from different color groups they are a beautiful pair of people then after you look at that then look at this page can you see this can everybody see this i hope this is a map that shows where modern human beings started and where they moved from to populate every land mass on the face of the earth every land mass on the face of the earth was populated by those dark skinned people that we call black and who weren't without any modern technology to help them to do it think about the brilliance the curiosity the courage the magnificence of those people and then realized that the only reason like there were lighter skinned people up in here is because they were those black so-called black people were exposed to less and less sunlight so their bodies produce less and less melanin that's the only reason that people in the scandinavian countries are light-skinned because they are exposed to less and less sunlight people your skin color is the result of your body's adaptation over the centuries to sunlight it has nothing to do with being different races please remember that and particularly remember that when i come back to california in december because i'm going to get really angry if some student comes up to me and says well you know miss i know i'm don't do it and i want you to read this book everybody read the book on tyranny it's what a hundred and some pages a hundred 126 pages 126 pages of pure brilliance these are 20 lessons from the 20th century you read this book it'll take you half an hour but if you read it and think about it while you're doing it you will never forget it everybody should have a copy of this this is only seven dollars and fifty cents it'll be a whole lot best less i'm sure if you get it on your kindle get this book and carry it in your pocket instead of whatever else you've been carrying in your pocket boy start carrying this because everybody needs to read this no one can be harmed by this do you understand that nobody can be impregnated by this this is something valuable that you can carry in your back pocket and when you whip it out and show it to people they'll think good lord that is a thinking human being whip it out and show it to people but only after you've read it and underlined it people the answer to the problems of racism sexism and all those other isms is education it isn't it isn't teaching it isn't counseling it's education i'm an educator the word educator comes from the deuce which means lead the prefix e which means out the subjects a t e which means the active the suffix or which means one who does an educator is one who is engaged in the act of leading people out of ignorance and that's what your college education ought to be doing for you to you and with you kelly i think that's what you're doing i'm not sure everybody at that college is but if they aren't if every one of those staff members haven't read this book you students need to say to them tomorrow have you read on tyranny by timothy snyder every teacher and every one of them will say well i don't think you need to tell me how to learn how to educate and you need to say if you haven't read timothee snyder's on tyranny you aren't ready to talk to me sir or madam because i think this is something we all need to read and we all need to relate to because it can change the way we live our lives getting right along what was the question that i answered too too long oh you did a good job we they wanted to know about being an activist and what's your advice for people who share your concerns regarding racism and want to be an activist self-educate self-educate people read if you don't read any if you don't read that one and you don't read this one then you better read both them i was going through my books the other day and i found this beyond racism by whitney young jr written in 1959 1969 i'm not sure which eyes get that confused i'm hard with that 1969 people the year after i did the blue eyed brown eyed exercise whitney young wrote this book i picked it up last week found it on the show and started to read it and realized oh my god he was talking in 1969 about the very things we're having to deal with today so you want to know how far we've come not very far because whitney young described in 1969 exactly what we have to do today to solve this problem does that bother you at all because it bothers me a lot it means that we were making progress and now we have taken in four short years gigantic steps backward we've gone backward what's 69 from 20 that's how many years we have gone backward it's in four years people this tells you how gullible how senseless how willing to follow the pied piper into the crack in the wall and that's exactly what a whole lot of us are doing right now if we don't change if we don't decide to vote and vote the right way in november we are going to lose our democracy you need to be aware of that i think you aren't aware of how similar what is happening today is to what was happening from 19 from 1933 to 1945 in nazi germany i recognize it because i was alive at that time nobody can deny that to me because i know that it's happening people wake up get out there get active be with the protesters because they are protesting what's happening in this country not just to blacks not just to lgbtq plus plus people not just in the age of not just to those who have disabilities they are protesting what's happening to all of us in the name of the person who wants to form an attack autocracy he doesn't like democracy because too many people are allowed to vote he wants an autocracy and this is not what this country was made was was to be and it is what you want it to be people democracy isn't perfect but it's better than autocracy for everybody next question okay it's related so how do you balance the dangers of active activism with the desire for change for example sometimes speaking out against racism comes with risks such as injury or even death how do you decide to be an activist in spite of these risks nobody lives forever and you can die quickly at never having done anything dying or being killed because of what you're doing when you know it's right isn't as bad as living a useless life you're here to hear what frederick douglass said frederick douglass said power concedes nothing without a demand it never did and it never will find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress and when you are living under a tyrant or a tyrannical government if you don't protest you'll you will get exactly what he wants you to get frederick douglass also said if there is no struggle there is no progress those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without flowing up the ground they want rain without thunder and lightning they want the ocean off out the awful roar of its many waters he said where justice is denied as it is in this country where poverty is enforced as it is in this country where ignorance prevails as it does in this country and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress rob and degrade them neither persons nor property will be safe and they shouldn't be safe property for the top one percent should not be safe if the other 99 are living hand to mouth which is a what a whole lot of people in this country are doing and if you think that that isn't happening then you read robert rice's book and now you're thinking i don't want to do all that reading then you don't want to make change you're happy with things as they are you don't want to educate yourself don't blame me read robert rice's book the system and the subtitle is who rigged it and how to fix it if you haven't read this people it isn't very it isn't a thick book and it doesn't have huge words it is common sense written by a man who knew what he was talking about you need to read this book people self-educate these are things now you're thinking i don't have time to read if you have time to watch television if you have time to go to netflix if you have time to go out and talk with the boys talk with the girls if you have time to play golf if you have time to play tennis if you have time to go to the beach if you have time for any of those you have time to read and it will stand you in better stead than all the other things i just mentioned okay what was the question it was about the dangers you know and you're saying live a principled life live according to your principles and you know it was just if you risk injury if you risk death you know should you still be an activist in spite of these risks absolutely absolutely because ruth ginsburg was an activist she will be remembered for a very long time and she will be remembered because people are in better shape because she lived and because she was an activist the rest of you can do the you can't do it the way she did it but every single person can make a difference if you think and your thing i know you're thinking right now well one person can't make a difference how many people do you think donald trump is has he made a difference he's made a difference in my life and he's threatening to make a bigger difference in my life because he's going to take away medicare the affordable care act and social security people he has made a difference in your lives in taking care of those who didn't want to continue to to protect the environment he has made a tremendous difference one person can make a difference and so can you make it a positive difference and if you die in the attempt well mr trump would say well it is what it is we've lost 200 000 people in this country in the last six months because of someone who says when he hears about those deaths it is what it is it's going to go away like a miracle it isn't going away but 200 000 americans have gone away be very careful about what you are willing to tolerate which one of those people do you think deserve to die more than you do because that's that's the thing who are you going to who are you going to choose to let go people in nursing homes people with pre-existing conditions people who don't have enough sense to wear a mask it's not a big effort to wear a mask in fact here's a mess that i think everyone should be wearing you know what it says get over it and i wear it because i'm talking about racism get over it if you weren't born a racist anything you created you can destroy we created racism and we could destroy it but we won't destroy it by electing the kind of person that is in the present the president's residence today get over it people we can get over this whole situation this coded 19 isn't the worst thing that ever happened to us racism has killed more people than covet 19 has millions more you want to think about the first group we killed native what we call native americans we killed them by the hundreds we weren't called a disease we were called colonists colonists and we were going to make the world a better place for those people to live so we gave them reservations on some of the most uninhabitable land there is in this country and we said we were doing right by them come on people you want to talk about reparations let's start with reparations to the native americans any other questions yes we do we have lots of questions what do you say to the person who has truly lost hope about fighting racism in the u.s nonsense that's absolute nonsense just because that person has lost hope that doesn't mean there's nothing to hope for i believe in hope and so did martin luther king jr for him hope was at his for me hope is an acronym for holding on to positive energy and as long as you do that we can make better things happen i believe that we can turn this thing around i know we can if we could get into this kind of a mess in four years we can turn it around by having a different person at the head of this this whole situation i have lots and lots of hope because and the reason i have hope is because of all those young people of all different colors and ages and genders and gender of sexual orientations and religions protesting what's happening in this country today that gives me tremendous hope because that says these kids aren't going to sit back and let it happen they're out there risking their lives knowing that this pool in the president's residence is going to send troops against them they're still out there because what they're doing is right and i would advise every one of you to join them we need to know to have the people who are really running this situation situation know that we aren't going to take it anymore we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore i know that came off a television show but that's what we have to say we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore no members of the house of representatives no members of the senate if you're going to force us to allow you allow you to vote for another member of the supreme court who is unfortunately evangelical and if you don't know about the evangelical movement people and i know some of you are and you're going to really protest this but before you protest it get some of frank schaefer's books and read them frank schaefer's father started the evangelical movement his name was franklin schaefer he started the evangelical movement in the uk he taught it to his son his son brought to this country taught it to people in this country and then he watched it be twisted and contorted out of shape and he says today stay away from the evangelical movement it is nothing like what his father started or what he wanted to start in this country people you and what after you read after you read frank schaefer's book then get the book i've got a copy of it here someplace doesn't matter the family by jeff charlotte and c street by jeff charlotte read those two books and you'll find out that in c at c street which is an address in washington dc members of the house of representatives and the senate can get cheap rooms if they agree to go along with or attend learning sessions run by evangelicals in the evenings now think about that if you dare think about that we are going we are right now in a situation where in a country where we have separation of church and state our members of congress are being encouraged to be educated according to a rather interesting christian religion in order to have cheap housing this is scary and if you think i'm lying about it get jeff charlotte's book the family and the other book c street and read them i don't think you're aware of what's going on here i think most people have not read jeff charlotte's books and i think most people have not read frank schaefer's books but you need to get them don't worry about sex mom and god that isn't one of his better works but he has done several books that everyone ought to read just because i have no problem with evangelical christianity or any other religion as long as it is truly religious and not attempting to change the way all of us believe in order to in order to make those people happy this is what's going on right now is really strange in that evangelicals are supporting donald trump think about this and the reason one of the reasons the main reasons they are supporting him is because he is opposed he says to abortion what i do with my body is nobody else's business if what i'm doing is a sin that's between me and god not between you and jerry falwell or who or his son and god you understand that and no man has the right to tell a woman what she can do with her body there is a cure for abortion and it's a very simple one anytime a male contributes to an unwanted pregnancy he must also submit to involuntary vasectomy so that he won't contribute to any more unwanted pregnancies now think about that people how many of you young men when you're in the act of maybe i'd like to do this think oops if this turns out to be an unwanted pregnancy i'm gonna have to lose my ability to produce some sperm cells now i think most of you would say no no no no let's let's get a blanket people it's time for men and women to be held responsible for unwanted pregnancies i don't know a woman living today who got pregnant without the help of the male but i know a whole lot of women who got pregnant with the help of a male and who were left with that child having to bear that child and you go through those labor pains and having to raise that child alone because that man oftentimes is off somewhere spreading his sperm cell elsewhere now you're thinking i don't like men oh yes i do oh man i like men oh wow my husband's been dead for seven years and i didn't want to talk about this however you have to know if we don't start teaching the three r's of rights respect and responsibility will never work our way out of this mess just teaching reading writing and arithmetic and only one of those words begins with r writing begins with a w arithmetic begins with a if we don't start teaching the three r's of rights respect and responsibility we will keep on miseducating the american mind we have to teach students that they have the they have the right to be respected and we are to be held responsible for refusing to respect the rights of others women have rights men are not going to be allowed to tell us what how we can live in the future and women shouldn't be allowed to tell men how they should live but as human beings we better start respecting one another's rights and being held responsible for it if we don't did i answer your question yes you did somewhere in there is the answer to your question okay yes yes you did we have a lot of educators with us today and so they're asking um they'd like to know your advice for addressing racism in the classroom because you have a background as a teacher as well an educator oh the first thing first thing you do the first day of school in the elementary grades is be sure that every child has a box of crayola crayons don't have to be crayola but a box of crayons take out the white crayon everybody take out your white crayon hold it against the back of your hand now if your skin matches that crayon raise your hand nobody will raise their hand because nobody has white skin and at that point you see there it is people you see there are no white people in this room there are no white people on this earth except in for those who are albinos and their bodies don't produce enough melon to color their skin there's a if you want to know how that works go to google tanzania and you'll see what happens to albinos in tanzania it will that will make you absolutely terrified however in this cradle crayon box many of you will find a color that matches your skin the white crayon doesn't match any of you so then you introduce them to the pantone color wheel and on the pantone color wheel they will find color that matches the color of their skin and in this magazine and i have it here somewhere is uh several pages out of that this magazine that shows you the different colors of people's skin what did i do with it now all right go ahead say i'm badly organized ask me if i care yes i do because here it is right here i'm not totally unorganized just slightly unorganized all right these are pages out of that national geographic magazine see all these different colored people can you see this from where you're sitting can you see this we can yes all right look at all these pictures all these different colored people people of different colors folks and under each one of them is the word pantone and a number because each of you has a skin color that you could find on the pantone color wheel now i'm not asking people to be known by their number i'm asking you to realize that each of these is a human being each of these is a descendant of those first modern human beings you will notice that there are no people of this color on these pages because people don't come in this color folks there are no people of this color even in tanzania you need to realize that every student and every student in that classroom needs to know that we are all shades of brown there are no white children there aren't whole black children we are all only shades of brown now for all of our lives we have known that white is the color of goodness and black is the color of evil when you refer to a child at the age of five in the classroom as a black child if he has had his parents read any of those those stories to him those folk tales then he realizes that black is the color of evil why in the name of heaven are you going to allow that child in your classroom to think that that's the way he that's the way he has to act because after all that's what color he is words have a tremendous amount of power and if you don't think they do then think about the fact that right now black students are saying i don't want to give up my color as i said before you don't have to give up your color but you have to understand that every person on this earth is a member of your race every single one and there is no black race and there is no white race those are color groups there is only the human race that's what these kids in school have to learn and they have to be taught the three hours of reason of rights respect and responsibility and you do that by encouraging them to work for the good of the whole group and you do that when i was doing student teaching the my critic teacher set up her room she was a third grade instructor in independence iowa she was also the principal of the school and she set up her room in rows and the rows changed every week and one one student was the real leader every week and those row leaders changed every week and every day we would couch and she would come points if they had a clean desk a sharpened pencil and a hanky and until you've been in a classroom with third graders in the fall and they all have colds and they're all doing that and picking theirs and rubbing their nose and rubbing on their clothes you don't realize how important a hankie is but she realized how important it was so if everybody in the row had all those things the row got to put up three points and then every time you did something good in the room you got to put up a point for your role every time you did something was against the rules if you didn't obey the listening schools you the listening rules you had to take off a point at the end of the roll at the end of the week the girl with the most points got into the grab bag and the grab bag is a paper sack that has the kinds of things that little kids love colored pencils fancy erasers that kind of thing they kids those kids worked their tails off to get into the grab bag they were the best behaved students i've ever seen in my life until i got in into teaching third grade and my principals would say i don't have to have a substitute for you while we're at this meeting in the multi-purpose room your kids can take care of themselves because they could they had learned rights respect and responsibility and they were working each row was working for those points the teacher said you're bribing those children and i said uh do you get paid at the end of the month for the work you do well yes i work for that well you see the kids work their most points and they deserve to be reinforced in positive behaviors well i think what you're doing is wrong and i'd say and i think what the school board is doing is wrong and paying you because you're standing here in the hall criticizing me all my students are in there alone and they're doing a good job of taking care of themselves because they know the three hours of rights respect and responsibility and she won't moves away enough too bad if you don't want to hear what i think is the truth leave me alone however you can only carry that so far i found out people are saying to me now jane how does it feel to be socially isolated socially what's that other word we're using distance i say it's nothing new for me i've been socially distanced from the last 52 years i've been socially distanced ever since i did the blue eye brown eyed exercise the first time now if you treat children like children that you want to get someday into their adult ego state and you expect them to act act as though they know about rights respect and responsibility you will have no trouble in your classroom because what you are introducing them to is cooperative cooperation they cooperate i'm sorry cooperative competition they compete to get for that grab by bag but in order to compete for the grab bag they have to cooperate with the peers in their role and they have to cooperate with everybody else because if you're unpleasant to another person in another role and you don't practice the listening skills you take off a point and the other kids in your role will not let you forget that because they work hard to get those points and then you act like a pool and take one off oh it makes them really cross and i don't blame them a bit i think you're absolutely right to expect everybody to cooperate in that competitive situation where they get the prizes if they behave properly and if the one thing you absolutely must learn if you're going to be a teacher is the listening skills now i know you all think you know how to listen but you don't number one write these down and you write these on a chart and you put it up at the front of the room no matter what grade level you teach even at the college level number one good listeners have quiet hands feet and mouths that takes care of all misbehavior in your classroom immediately and if the kids start not practicing that listening skill they have to take off a point i guess you know that they'll practice that listening skill number two good listeners learn listen from the beginning to the very end wait a minute wait good no number two is good listeners keep their eyes on the person who is speaking good listeners keep their eyes on the person who is speaking that keeps you that means that you don't have to play any of these winky pool games your kids are and the kids aren't looking out the window because they're keeping their eyes on the person who's speaking even if it's another student the third one is good listeners listen from the beginning to the very end that takes away all those little girls who are constantly raising their hand to ask the question they don't want to ask a question they want attention so they're doing this and you're thinking uh and you stay to them do you are you practicing the listening skills now well i have are you practicing the listening skills now are you practicing your listening skills now and they put their hand down and in the film that you can see on television this girl finally throws a fit and leaves the room because she isn't being listened to she needs to know how it feels to not be listened to and that's what she learns in that film made her furious the fourth one is and this is the most important one of these four listening skills good listeners decide to learn something if kids have decided to learn something they will if they have decided not to learn something there's not a one that a thing that you can do about that but you can say to that kid who has obviously decided not to learn you've decided not to learn haven't you go and take off a point and then everybody in the role is glaring at him or her and all of a sudden it's oh it's not up to the teacher to control these kids it's not up to the educator to control these kids behavior it's up to the educator to furnish the materials for the day to furnish the what they're going to learn for that day it's up to the students to control their own behavior now you're going to have other teachers who will say to you you are too strict you aren't allowing those children any freedom and you're going to say wait a minute they are free to practice the listening skills they are free to earn points they are free to get the advantage of having earned those points and getting a prize at the end of the week they are not free to disturb the learning environment for the rest of the students if they do they will take off points it's not because they're upsetting me it's because they are disturbing the learning environment for the whole class they are not allowed to do that now if you think that is too authoritarian you need to remember in that classroom you the educator are the authority figure and you'd better be able and prepared to be the authority figure you don't have to be authoritarian but you have to be authoritative you have to know what you're talking about you have to know classroom control you have to show your children that you can control yourself and you expect them to control themselves it is not your job to control those students it is your job to teach them self-control to teach them rights respect and responsibility and hold them responsible for their unpleasant behaviors does that make sense to you yes this is great advice for us too as college educators and even for people in a couple relationships who might need their partners absolutely absolutely when you have college students who come in with a can of pop and chewing gum you need to say uh wait a minute good listeners have quiet hands feet and mouths their listeners keep their eyes on the person speaking the listeners listen from the beginning very end good listeners decide to learn something now if you want to eat drink and be merry stay outside we're not going to eat and drink in this classroom if you have a dietary problem that you have to eat and drink then you need to send me a note about that and we'll make an exception in your class in your case but when you're in this classroom you're not in here to eat and drink that there's a place out in the hall or down down the hallways there is a lunchroom you go down there and do your eating and drinking and if you ladies are going to pop your gum in this room you need to know that number one is tacky number two it's noisy number three it's violating the first listening skill now you're thinking oh she's too she's too rigid that's not rigidity that is educating students and how to learn quickly my students learn twice as much in half the time because they practice the listening skills dr james daugherty of drake university said 60 of what we learn comes to us through our ears 60 of what we learn comes to us through our ears if we would teach children the listening skills and then as instructors have something for them to listen to that is going to be productive we can change the the attitude and behavior and the environment in every classroom in the united states of america and we can change it into a place where people go to learn because they know how to listen and they know how to behave in a classroom environment okay thank you in looking back at your life of activism thus far is there anything you wish you would have done differently i wish i had known how racist the teachers and the men in that community were and i didn't know if i had known that i would have warned my children our four children went to school in that system i would have warned them about what i was going to do and i would have said i'm going to do this knowing that you kids are going to take a lot of crap because i'm doing it and when that happens as it invariably will you come to me and if it's a teacher that's doing it i'll go to the principal and if a student is doing it i'll go to the teacher and if the teacher doesn't do something about it then i'll go to the principal and if the principal doesn't do something about it i'll go to the superintendent i didn't do that because i didn't realize the level of racism in those teachers or the level of jealousy and i think most of them were just jealous because as they said she's getting more attention i didn't need the attention that is what i did that exercise for i got the attention because so many people who heard about it nationwide were impressed because it looked like it could make a difference and it did make a difference it made a difference in those kids and what they were as they grew up you need to realize that those psychologists will say that's too rough on those children that is good that's traumatic when you put those children through that exercise for a day damn it all to hell teachers put black children through this exercise for a lifetime we start prenatally and we don't start after you're dead because there are still cemeteries the united states of america where black people are not allowed to be buried but psychologists don't think about what happens every day to people of color because they like many of them are like our wanted president says it is what it is it doesn't have to be that way teachers who see that exercise on film and say oh that is too tough need to realize that those kids are responding to that situation as little white children the way black children don't dare respond to that situation because if they did we would come down on them like a duck on a junebug and we do and we kill them we kill a little what ten-year-old boy walking across a playground with what looks like a toy gun in his hand and the police shot him and that wasn't the first one you see the remarkable thing about this last three months is for the first time when that young woman was standing there filming that white male with his white policeman with his knee on that black man's neck even though people were saying to save him let him up let him up he can't breathe let him up he kept right on doing it and look directly into the camera while he was doing it that was the first time i think that white people got a chance to see what people of color have been living with in this country for over 250 years they have known what was going on white black mothers have known when they send their sons out in the morning that they might not come home in the afternoon and if they do come home they might be beaten all the hell they know that and they have said it and we have said you're exaggerating you're playing the race card it isn't that bad or some teacher will stand up at the first of the year in a class of diverse students and say to them i see people i don't see people as black or brown or red or yellow i just see people as people that's the time when she ought to lose her job because that's a racist statement she never puts white in there because it's all right to see white because that's the normal page that's the normal college color this fall when some teacher says that some student ought to stand up and say you forgot to say white are you telling me that you you see white but you don't see people of color she's going to kick that kid out of the classroom and they're probably going to kick him out of school for being out of his place students you need to be out of your place when teachers say things like that you need to let them know they're flat out wrong and it's a flat out racist statement and when somebody walks up to you as they do to me all the time white women constantly come up to me and say i'm colorblind i don't see color and i'm supposed to say oh that's wonderful you're such a lovely liberal non-racist person instead i say i knew it before you said that because if you saw color you wouldn't wear that shirt with those pants and then they get angry and they tear away from me faster than they came up hopefully they'll never say that again i'll never forget the teacher the instructor in texas who stood up in a group of probably five or six hundred students and students and instructors and said while i was talking miss elliot yeah i just looked for the person's heart and i said if you can see my heart from where you're standing you should go down to the local hospital and volunteer to be their x-ray machine you can save them a lot of money she said you don't understand what i'm saying i said i understand exactly what you're saying in order for you to relate to a person whose skin color is different from yours you have to pretend that you don't see it you spoke straight to their heart which you cannot see furthermore your skin is the largest inch by inch organ on your body make no mistake about this and if you can say to a person i don't see your color you're saying i don't see your skin who the hell do you think you're kidding here she stormed out of that room she was absolutely furious and the black kids were cheering and i thought hasn't anybody thought to say that to her before i'll bet she doesn't make that statement anymore white women watch your mouths and don't talk to me about unconscious and conscious bias because the people who are on the receiving end of it realize it's bias and if you have a bias you need to lose your bias instead of giving giving it another name and that's what we do we call racism a social construct what it is is a damn lie but if we call it a social construct then it's more acceptable no it isn't a lie is a lie and the idea of several different races is a flat out lie it doesn't matter who constructed it but unfortunately lighter skinned people constructed it and lighter skinned people who are all members of the same race could destroy it if they chose to but you see we choose not to destroy racism in this country because it's a money making project we make a lot of money off the backs of people of color we have reinstituted slavery in the united states of america with our prison industrial system and if you don't believe that you read the michelle alexander's book the new jim crow read that this week and realize what's happening in this country partially with the help of bill clinton's three strikes you're out there are thousands of young black males in prison today because of bill clinton's three strikes a year out and yet a couple of months ago we put let out of prison three white males who were cohorts of donald trump and we let them out because they're on house arrest now and one is freed for good we let them out because they might be exposed to coven 19 in the penitentiary how many of those young black males are being exposed to covet 19 in the penitentiary well it is what it is think about what it is we're doing and think about who it is that's leading us down this ugly lane and go to the polls in on november 3rd in massive numbers and vote for someone who will put a stop to this nonsense your democracy depends on it people make no mistake about this this could be the end of democracy if you do not vote and vote the right way now i'm neither republican nor democrat but neither am i a fool and i recognize what's happening now you may not but let me tell you it is the beginning of the end of democracy in this country are there any other questions well we're nearing our time we have endless questions but we'll we'll thank you for your message today because you've covered so many topics and provided a very valuable message for us so so we'll end it there ms elliott and so with that um i do want to thank you for being here on behalf of the institute for child development and family relations and also our student society saikai the international honor society for psychology um you've really impacted the lives of so many people and you've brought an awareness to the topic of racism that would otherwise not be possible and you're an inspiration to us all so thank you for spending this time with us and for sharing this message and i hope to see you in person sooner than later as soon as this cove is over and thanks to all our participants as well for being here have a wonderful day everybody thank you mazzella you're most welcome thank you you're most welcome thank you for having me

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Length: 53min 32sec (3212 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020