The following eye-opening video shows the power of in-group and out-group dynamics, and how the in-group of being white has been such a powerfully oppressive force in American history.
This video was shot in 1970 with a classroom of 3rd grade students from Iowa. These children would all be around the age of 52 today. My point in this is to show that societally accepted overt racism was alive and well not that long ago, and also to show that while hopefully 3rd graders today do not hold the same blatantly racist views as seen in the video, we cannot deny the effect this type of extremely recent societal conditioning has had in shaping the America that we know today. To say “racism doesn’t effect the way our society is structured today” is an uninformed and unloving thing to say. Centuries of racism formed the dynamics of our country, let’s make sure we are intentional about reconciling the many divides this type of oppression and division has caused, rather than acting like it never happened or that it doesn’t affect people today.
In-group / out-group dynamics are created anywhere there is consistent separation of two groups of people. Racial segregation used to be forced on us, now many of us choose it. One of the ways to recondition ourselves against in-group / out-group prejudices is to put ourselves and our families in diverse environments. This is easier said than done, but is something we must work toward in order to work against systemic racism.
See my other recent posts on racial reconciliation:
- How To Talk About Racism
- The Past of Racism Polluting Our Present: How White Suburbs Were Made
- How America’s Racist Past Breeds Racial Profiling Today
Related posts:
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I wish I could remember the name of the news program that followed a more recent implementation of the infamous “blue eyes vs brown eyes” experiment. Some of the children were in tears over the attempts to manipulate them into doing what they knew to be wrong. Perhaps a more effective lesson could have been drawn from the classic Star Trek episode: http://youtu.be/vi7QQ5pO7_A
Good video posted!!!