“From now until these four years are over, everyone of you in this room have to protect the rights of everyone else in this room, because you are all members of the family of man,”

This was  Jane Elliot’s, a fiery educator and activist, main point to her discussion

Organized by the Arts & Lectures Series, CSUSM hosted “The anatomy of Prejudice”  on [date] Similar to Dr. Cornel West’s appearance in November, this appearance filled the ballroom to the brim with eager students, faculty and guests.

Elliott is famous for her controversial and unvarnished, “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise. The exercise was done after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and involved Elliott’s third grade class as the participants.

She divided the class into two, one side being the blue-eyed students and the other being brown-eyed. She told the students that brown-eyed people are better than any blue-eyed person due to their levels of melanin.

One of the less outgoing and slower brown-eyed children began to have a change in attitude, particularly a boost in authority and confidence over the blue-eyed children. Elliott flipped the exercise and established that the blue-eyed students were better.

They were more apprehensive to boast their power because they knew what it felt like to be discriminated against. Elliott’s exercise mostly received reprisal from her colleagues and peers.

“I copy for that exercise what we do in this country on a daily basis,” said Elliott. She said that if she had known there would be such backlash from her small hometown (Riceville, Iowa) after the exercise, she wouldn’t have done it.

Elliott discussed her problem with the addition of “under god” within The Pledge of Allegiance. She reminded the audience that The Knights of Columbus successfully lobbied to add “under god” into the pledge in 1954. “We’re supposed to have separation of church and state in this country,” said Elliott.

Elliott discussed the educational system, explaining that schools offer indoctrination, not education. She said, “The longer you stay in school, the more bigoted you become,” alluding to her conviction that racism is taught in our schools. “Get educated instead of getting schooled.”

Elliott spoke about President Trump, or in her words, “Number 45.” She urged audience members to download Indivisible, an app “for resisting the Trump agenda” according to the Indivisible website.

She suggested everyone to read The Myth of Race by Robert R. Sussman and Red Earth, White Lies by Vine Deloria Jr.

and said, “You can give up racism people, nobody is born a racist. There is no gene for bigotry!”