University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 69, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 7, 1992 Page: 4 of 6
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Lamar University.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
f age 4
university rrcaa
'Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes' exposes racism
By C.E. Louviere
UP managing editor
Anyone waiting in the crowd out-
side the Setzer Student Center
Thursday night might have thought
himself at a sporting event. But,
make no mistake about it, the peo-
ple in the crowd soon found out that
they were not going to be in for a
night of fun and games when Jane
Elliot took the stage with her lecture
titled “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes.”
The members of the Setzer
Student Center Council did not
anticipate the kind of overwhelming
response this 58-year-old grand-
mother from Old Sage, Iowa, would
command; otherwise, they would
have furnished the Ballroom with
100 more seats.
Many of those who attended the
lecture went because they had seen
Elliot on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
Some went because they wanted
credit or extra credit for a class. But
many went (at least I hope) because
they are concerned about and affect-
ed by racism and prejudice.
The general public probably did
not expect the kind of relentless heat
that Elliot would fire in them and at
them. Though they might have seen
her on a talk show, or were familiar
with her controversial experiment
with school children, most people
were ill at ease and angered by
Elliot’s direct and intentional barrage
of frank and sometimes scolding
statements.
Elliot started by asking the audi-
ence members to look at the people
to the left, right, front and rear of
their seats.
“If any of those people you see
are white, then you are looking at a
racist,” she said.
Her basis for such a broad and
indiscriminate statement is based,
she said, on the fact that even
though many whites do not feel or
practice direct prejudice, they do not
Analysis
do anything to stop it. This, she
says, is the same as racism.
“I knew that I was a racist the
day that Reverend Martin Luther
King died,” Elliot said as a prelude
to her recollection of the classroom
experiment for which she is now
famous.
Elliot said she once explained to
an all-white third grade class who
King was and what he stood for in
response to a child’s question about
“a king who had been shot.” After
this class, she went into the faculty
lounge, where one teacher respond-
ed to Elliot’s classroom discussion
by saying that she didn’t know why
anyone should bother, that she was
“glad that somebody finally shot the
son of a bitch.”
Elliot was shocked at the state-
ment, she said, but felt that perhaps
it was worse that no one, including
herself, challenged the teacher’s
statement. That was when she
decided to show her class, as much
as was possible, what it was like to
be black.
She used eye color to intentional-
ly segregate and discriminate against
certain class members. The “brown
eyes” were first.
She told the class that brown
eyes were less smart, that blue-eyed
children were naturally smarter. She
made the brown eyes wear collars so
that they could be easily recognized
from a distance.
They were given shorter recess,
could not drink from the water foun-
tain (they had to use paper cups —
and had to recycle them), could sit
only in the back of the classroom
and were constantly reminded of
their inferiority.
The next day she told them that
she had lied, that the blue eyes
where in truth the inferior “race,”
and she turned the scenario around.
Her findings were astonishing.
“Within 15 minutes, those sweet,
well-mannered, delightful little boys
and girls turned into beasts ... nasty,
hateful, vengeful little beasts,” she
said.
Worse still, she said, was the
direct effect that it had on their
schoolwork. The brown eyes, when
treated as inferior, responded poorly
on skills tests while the blue eyes
excelled. When the tables were
turned, not only did the brown eyes
excell over a 24-hour period, but the
blue eyes’ performance deteriorated
by an alarming margin within that
same time frame.
“We proved beyond a shadow of a
doubt that children will indeed live
up to the expectations we give
them," she concluded.
Her methods are sometimes con-
troversial but, as she said, if white
children can be emotionally scarred
by such harsh treatment (as some of
her critics point out), imagine what it
is like to live with it all of your life.
Her ideas on racism and discrimi-
nation are not limited to black and
white relations. She contends that all
minorities in America, including
women, gays and lesbians, and non-
Christians, experience the same sort
of intolerance.
Elliot concluded with a main
point that she feels, and I must
agree, might alleviate much of
America’s problem with racism. She
says that the idea of a melting pot, of
everyone blended together to formu-
late one American race, is complete-
ly counterproductive to the nation’s
continued success.
We must cherish our differences
and utilize all human resources.
That progressive behavior will not
persist, she says, as long as the
“WASP male” continues to rule and
oppress.
Stein recounts horrors of Holocaust
By Tracy Harbin
UP staff writer
Photo by C.E. Louviere
Mmmmmmmm, good!
Cindy Dinkins shows everyone her "stupid human trick" as Melissa
Cessac looks on in amazement at the University Awareness workshop on
Saturday in Lumbcrton.
A picture was found after
World War II of a blood-covered
priest who had just murdered his
first Jewish child. Later it was dis-
covered that he had wanted the
picture taken so he could remem-
ber the proudest day of his life.
According to Leon Stein, accounts
like this one have been covered
up for years.
Stein, professor and chairper-
son of the department of history at
Roosevelt University in Chicago,
sought to correct this injustice
Thursday at the John Gray
Institute with a lecture titled
“When Reality Exceeds the
Imagination: Little Known Facts
About the Holocaust.” He said the
purpose of his lecture was to give
people a look at history and what
mankind is capable of doing.
“The Holocaust teaches us
that anything is possible,” Stein
said. “Things that we could never
imagine can and did happen.”
He said new findings show that 6
million Jews were murdered during
and before World War II. Their exe-
cutioners considered them sub-
human and therefore not worthy to
live.
“These facts numb the mind and
stagger the imagination,” Stein said.
Stein said the Jews in Germany
never fathomed that anything like
the Holocaust could ever take place,
especially in their homeland. He said
that even after being herded into cat-
tle cars to be sent to “hellholes” such
as Dachau and Auschwitz, few people
knew what horrors awaited them.
They were met with slave labor, gas
chambers, starvation and cruelty
beyond human comprehension.
Stejn described one incident in
which a Jewish man claimed he
would survive the camps and tell the
world about what really took place.
An SS officer laughed and informed
the prisoner no one would ever
believe him.
Stein said some people have
tried to prove that the Holocaust
never actually happened. They
claim that Anne Frank’s diary was
forged and other evidence was cre-
ated. Stein said this kind of think-
ing is dangerous because if people
ever dare to forget what took place,
atrocities like those of the
Holocaust could happen again.
“This is the extreme of what can
happen when you treat people like
things instead of people. We study
the extremes to know the
extremes,” Stein said.
One of Stein’s main points was
that the German people appeared
to be oblivious to the happenings
around them.
“In Germany, they first came for
the Communists, and I didn’t speak
up because I wasn’t a Communist,”
said Martin Niemoller, a German
pastor. “Then they came for the
Jews, and I didn’t speak up because
I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for
the trade unionists, and I didn’t
speak up because I wasn’t a trade
unionist. Then they came for the
Catholics, and I didn’t speak up
because I was Protestant. Then
they came for me — and by that
time no one was left to speak up.”
Stein said everyone should
study every aspect of the
Holocaust, from the rise of Adolf
Hitler to the fall of Germany in
1945, because knowing the causes
and watching for the signs is the
only way to prevent another
Holocaust
Stein concluded that what hap-
pened cannot be changed. He said
feeling guilty about the horrors of
Hitler and his SS officers would
accomplish nothing, but he held
that people should stand up for
what is right and face the future
with a clear and keen awareness of
the happenings around them.
Big Thicket Preserve approved for expansion Richards unveils plan to retrain defense workers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee has approved
a plan that would expand the Big
Thicket National Preserve, adding
canyons, spring-fed creeks and a
blackwater swamp to the 86,000-
acre East Texas woodland.
Texas Sens. Lloyd Bentsen and
Phil Gramm separately have been
pushing in the Senate for expansion
of the preserve, known as
“America’s ark” for its variety of
flora and fauna.
The two introduced differing
legislation, with Bentsen seeking to
boost the size of the preserve above
100,000 acres while Gramm advocat-
ed a smaller increase. Rep. Charles
Wilson, D-Lufkin, for several years
has introduced legislation in the
House similar to what Bentsen has
sought since coming to the Senate in
1970.
Gramm’s version was approved
Tuesday in committee. Action by
the full Senate could come later this
week.
The state’s two senators were
pleased by the action, at was Wilson.
“It has been a long time in the
making,” said Gramm, R-Texas. “I
am hopeful that (the expansion) will
become law this session of
Congress.”
Said Bentsen: “Today’s commit-
tee action brings us an important
step closer to expanding the preserve
and enhancing our ability to save this
unique biological wonderland for
future generations of Americans to
enjoy.”
The legislation approved TUesday
expands the preserve to 97,000 acres
— adding the Village Creek
Corridor, Big Sandy Corridor and
Canyonlands.
“These new corridors provide
important migration pathways for
plant and animal species, boosting
survival chances for the rich variety
of species in the area,” Bentsen said.
But Bentsen earlier,defended
acquisition of the Big Sandy
Corridor, saying it would add to the
scenic beauty of the preserve while
helping connect three major pre-
serve units.
The legislation approved Sept. 22
does not include land in the Sabine
River Blue Elbow Unit and the
Lower Neches River Corridor ear-
marked in both Bentsen’s and
Wilson’s bills.
“I am extremely disappointed
that tbey did not include Blue
Elbow,” Wilson said, adding that he
was hopeful that portion could be
added. But, he added, “At this
stage, you take what you can get and
we need to get something on the
books.”
The Big Thicket is home to more
than 1,000 flowering plants, 300
species of birds, 85 species of trees
and shrubs, 40 kinds of wild orchid
and four major types of forest.
FORT WORTH (AP) — Gov.
Ann Richards has asked Texas busi-
ness leaders to join her fight for a
plan she says would help skilled
workers stay on the job.
of the Texas Department of
Commerce, said the program would
give matching grants to businesses
that want to train new employees or
teach new skills to current workers.
state come from the fund, which last
week held $757.6 million, TEC pub-
lic information officer Retha Vlakaey
said.
Richards unveiled the Smart Jobs
Fund to award grants to industries
that want to retrain their employees.
The program particularly could help
defense and energy industries as
those jobs slide on a rocky economy,
she said.
Community and technical col-
leges could provide the training,
according to the proposal.
No new taxes are needed to fund
it, Richards told the Texas Industrial
Development Council.
Bonner called the plan a positive
and more effective way to lure out-
of-state businesses to Texas.
Companies would rather see a
diverse workforce than tax breaks,
she said.
The money will add 6,300 acres
to the 54,000 acres already in the
refuge, bringing critical nesting and
roosting habitats into the preserve,
Bentsen said.
“We’ve learned that it is fool-
hearted to simply hunker down and
hope for the best," she said, “We
can anticipate problems and we can
turn them into opportunities."
The Legislature still must
approve the proposal.
It would be financed by diverting
0.1 percent — or $50 million — from
the state’s Unemployment Insurance
Trust Account.
Cathy Bonner, executive director
That fund, administered by the
Texas Employment Commission,
contains the tax money employers
pay on wages to their employees. All
unemployment benefits paid by the
BECOME
A HOST
FAMILY...
ia» LfL
to an Australian,
Scandinavian, European,
South American or Japanese
High School Exchange
Student.
AISE brings people together
from around the world for an
adventure in understanding.
You too, can share this adven-
ture by becoming a Host Family.
Open your heart and your home
to a foreign student who wants
to spend a year studying in
America.
CALL TOLL FREE...
1-800-SIBLING
American Intercultural
Student Exchange
A NON PROFIT TAX EXEMPT
EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
Oct. 12* 16
Trent Graphic Poster Sale
SSCRoom 106
9 a.m. ■ 4 p.m.
From The Au i aimi i > Director
OfIGoouFfuas"
pBR!
FESTIVAL
Now Is live time for nil Rood follows nml ladies to Join In festival fun...
Saturday, Oct. 24
Texas Renaissance Festival Trip
$17 includes transportation and ticket
Fk)w
TEXAS
mmm
^-150TH ANNIVERSARY
I somi miNos justarr arms as time goes by
Tuesday, Oct. 13
SSC Perch
7 p.m.
(faf&tkii
jL 'V'SV
co PR! st n r AiioifINM*N1 MOM l A DlurihullonOo.
I.I'FIW’* *0 I '9U MOV PiW* :
College Bowl
The Varsity Sport of the Mind
Coming Soon
Saturday & Sunday
November 7 & 8
Fiesta Texas & Sea World
in San Antonio
trip includes
______ « 1 night lodging at
the Hilton Placido Del Rio
transportation
tickets to Fiesta Texas & Sea World
Continential Breakfast on Sunday
V
Saturday, Oct. 17
Casual Comback Movies
SSC Room 206
12 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct. 14 Spring Break
SSC Perch March 13-20
7 P.m. Cardinal Crusin'II
7 Day Cruise to the Western Caribbean
Ports of Call: Montego Bay, Cayman Islands,
Cozumel, and Playa De Carmen
For more information on all SSCC events call 880-8734
[r'm
Rockin The BoatAgain
& d> a> & & Q> <4#
& &
o to o o o o o ®
/
I
Richards said the state would be
forward-thinking to anticipate fur-
ther defense cuts. This program, she
said, would ease the conversion of
defense workers to other industries.
“The people who developed the
high-tech weapons systems that won
Operation Desert Storm can certain-
ly build a better mousetrap, or what-
ever will sell on the international
market — whether that mousetrap is
the next generation of high-defini-
tion televisions, or the next genera-
tion of artificial intelligence,” she
said.
The Texas Industrial
Development Council named
Richards the Volunteer Industrial
Helper of the Year for 1991 for her
work in keeping jobs in Tfcxas.
t .1
8S5S
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Matching Search Results
View six places within this issue that match your search.Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Bankston, Mark. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 69, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 7, 1992, newspaper, October 7, 1992; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth499995/m1/4/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Lamar University.