04.11.2011
Analysis by: Emily Greenquist
Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise
Jane Elliott’s “Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise” is the greatest LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) game of all time. This “exercise,” this game, shows how participation in a simulated idea can deeply move players; even persuade them into thinking completely opposite to their prior real life stance.
For those of you unfamiliar with the “Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise,” let me open the door to Jane Elliott’s 1968 3rd grade classroom:
Moved by Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Jane Elliott constructed an experience in which the students role-played racism. The class was segregated by eye color and given definitions about differences between the colors: one superior; one inferior. (These were reversed on the second day).
For those of you unfamiliar with the “Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise,” let me open the door to Jane Elliott’s 1968 3rd grade classroom:
Moved by Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Jane Elliott constructed an experience in which the students role-played racism. The class was segregated by eye color and given definitions about differences between the colors: one superior; one inferior. (These were reversed on the second day).
The "A Class Divided" special reunited students involved in the initial exercise, and as adults, they watch their former selves receive the game's rules.
The students played along with minimal resistance, actively mistreating those of the “inferior color” and allowing privileges to the “superior color.” Intellectual abilities improved and slipped based on their given distinction, solely because of the emotional response that derived from the collective’s treatment.
Note the difference in facial expressions of the students in the front of the line vs. the students forced to the back of the line.
After the experience, the students understood the injustice of racism, emotionally ripping up the bands that once differentiated them. Without this game, the students may have never felt the personal sting of prejudice; with this game, their lives were forever altered.
Games are powerful. They have the ability to expose players to aspects of the human condition not otherwise understood. Game designers do not need to protect the player to help them – exposing others to the baseness of certain realities has the potential to inspire real life change.
Play Jane Elliott’s Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise
Games are powerful. They have the ability to expose players to aspects of the human condition not otherwise understood. Game designers do not need to protect the player to help them – exposing others to the baseness of certain realities has the potential to inspire real life change.
Play Jane Elliott’s Blue-Eyed / Brown-Eyed Exercise
Special Thanks
To: my parents and Grant Blvd.
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