Puffed. Puffed is the way every one of us feels. Puffed is the word my brother once used to describe being a step beyond full. Puffed means you threw off the bonds of normal human eating and ascended to new heights of fattyhood. Puffed means my grandma and mom are culinary geniuses (genii?). Puffed means my home is warm, full of laughter, and perfect in every imperfect way. I am thankful to be so miserable on Thanksgiving.
Poor blog, you have been so ignored. This summer took me on a lovely trip to Glorietta, New Mexico. This month took me to Las Vegas to marry off my favorite seesther. There is a new puppy at home and he and I are basically in love. This post isn’t about any of those things. Instead, I will be committing a bit of university blasphemy by talking about class during a break.
One could fill volumes with the knowledge that college students could benefit from in real life. These are not the time-management and get plenty of sleep lessons you get in University Life class. They are the realistic, probably irresponsible secrets to making it work. One of these facts is that your introductory class for your major WILL be boring. You will find it excruciating. You will despair at the idea of spending the next 3 years probably surrounded by these morons. You will freak out about your major, your life choices, and the major essay you put off because you couldn’t bear the thought of creating it. Fear not! This is normal. Life will go on. You will make friends with similar interests and occasionally learn something.
Just the other day, one of these shining moments took place. My professor showed a video about discrimination. Maybe you’ve heard of Jane Elliot, a clever woman from Riceville, Iowa. Mrs. Elliot taught 3rd grade in the 70s. Today’s fun fact is that MLK Jr was assassinated in 1968. Mrs. Elliot was not impressed with her country’s response. She found that white reporters reacted with questions like, “What are your people going to do now?” Mrs. Elliot hadn’t seen any progress between the times when “the only good injun was a dead injun” and “modern day”. How could civilized people commit such atrocities against one another? More pressing, Mrs. Elliot wondered how she could teach her students the truth about discrimination. Mrs. Elliot came up with a plan.
Mrs. Elliot talked a little with her class (of white, protestant, middle-class students) about discrimination. Her students knew about the civil rights movement and the prejudices that caused it. She asked them if they wanted to do an experiment to see how they would feel if they were discriminated against. Like any good group of small children, they gladly accepted. Mrs. Elliot explained that the students would be in 2 groups for the next few days, blue-eyed and brown-eyed. The first day favored the blue-eyed people. Mrs. Elliot told the class that blue-eyed people were smarter, cleaner, and better than brown-eyed people. Brown-eyed people would not be allowed to use the water fountain, they had to use cups. Brown-eyed people had to stay in 5 extra minutes before recess. Furthermore, brown-eyed people must wear knit collars around their necks. The next day, the experiment flipped. Brown-eyed students took their collars and placed them on the neck of a blue-eyed student and the cycle started over.
The results of this experiment were astounding. Mrs. Elliot said she watched good, kind children turn hateful and cruel. The group in collars was ostracized and mocked. Two boys had a fist fight on the playground because one had called the other “Brown Eyes”. Students in collars were visibly discouraged and even angry. Mrs. Elliot gave simple spelling or math tests before, during, and after the experiment. Amazingly, students did significantly worse on these tests while they were in the collar group.
I encourage you to check this thing out. I was shocked at how profound the responses of 8 and 9-year-old children were. They were deeply affected by the exercise. The students were forever changed by their first-hand experience of being considered less than someone else. Mrs. Elliot discussed with them afterwards that you should never judge a person based on what you see on the outside. After delivering some wisdom that could only come from children, they proceeded to destroy the hated collars. One little boy even ripped his up with his teeth.
So I got to thinkin’, as the thinkers will do. Thinking about how impressed I was that children so young could understand such difficult concepts. Thinking about the devastating effects on a person who is repeatedly made less than someone else. Thinking about the dreadful ignorance of someone who deludes himself into believing he is superior. Thinking about how much this post reminds me of the Holocaust Museum one. But now I’m thinking about something else. I’m thinking of the idea that you judge a person by what’s inside, not outside. Which sounds lovely. Is it? Is it okay to judge someone by their insides?
I heard once that judgment means assuming you know why a person is the way they are. How arrogant. I can’t even know what a person had for breakfast, much less if your mom gave you enough hugs. Can some people be better than others? What makes a person valuable? I profess to believe that a person has worth because they are a person. Every human being is made in the image of a creator who was so crazy about them that he would kill his own son just to be with them. My head hangs a little as I think about the reality of my behavior. My actions sometimes say people have value based on how happy they make me. My worst offense is judging people on their vocabularies. When will I learn that feeling like the smartest person in the room is not WWJD? I think it’s time some of us rethought the logic that you judge a person by their inside. Maybe it’s time to realize that even if a person’s insides are nine kinds of nasty, they are still a person.
Think about it. Hop around YouTube videos of Jane Elliot. Finish your pie and for heaven’s sake take up Cyber Monday you crazies. I’m off to wallow in the joys of weight gain. Leave me a comment and pass the pepcid :)
