Jane Elliot Study Guide Answers

1. I believe the documentary was intriguing, eye-opening and realistic. The one scene in the documentary that truly stuck out to me was when one of the females felt like she was being picked on by Jane Elliot. She was a white female with short hair, the only one to walk out of the room. Jane Elliot states, “When your hand is up you are thinking about what you are trying to say rather than listening.” She wasn’t listening to Jane Elliot, she felt attacked and talked back and then walked out of the room. Elliot made a point when the student walked out of the room, that, “Martin Luther King was shot, but was she in any physical danger, no.” She also mentioned how people of color do not have the choice to walk out of racism, there isn’t a place in the country where they won’t be exposed to racism. The student showed how frustrated she was, not just as a white person but as a person of color.
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When it came to the child’s perspective one of the third graders became defensive about his father. Jane Elliot stated, “Blue-eyed people were smart and Brown-eyed people were stupid.” The child defended his father and saying, “no my father isn’t stupid.” She then convinced him by reminding him that his father had kicked him recently but that the blue eyed children with fathers had not kicked them. There was also a student of color who felt that white people don’t understand what it is like for colored people to be discriminated on a day to day basis. For example, when a white person states, “That I don’t see color,” they are lying because you do see in color, the world isn’t in black and