Knowing is Half the Battle

Twenty five years ago I was profoundly affected by an Oprah show....and I am still haunted by it to this day. The audience was divided into two separate groups. The people with blue eyes were given a bright green collar to wear and given the worst seats in the room. The brown eyed people were treated to fresh donuts while the blue eyed people watched. When the blue eyed people asked where their donuts were they were sharply told to sit down and shut up! A lady named Jane Elliott came out onto the stage and began to explain how studies have overwhelmingly proven that blue eyed people are inferior to brown eyed people. She continued to say that blue eyed people were arrogant, demanding, had a misplaced sense of entitlement and had lower IQ's. Now, being a blue eyed person I was screaming and yelling at the television! I was outraged!!!One lady called in and explained that FINALLY there was some proof to explain why her blue eyed child was so difficult to deal with...and her brown eyed child was a pleasure. The blue-eyed people in the audience were outraged! Every time the blue-eyed people tried to protest they were told to sit down and shut up. The brown-eyed audience members took turns standing up and discussing their 'problems' with blue-eyed people. I literally LOST my mind!!!

Jane Elliott's "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" was an experiment to expose the effects of social conditioning. She made one group superior and the other inferior. Predictably, she showed that if a group of people is maliciously held back and made to feel like there are worth less than another group, eventually the allegedly inferior group will act the part of actually becoming inferior. The superior group found common ground quickly and joined forces to keep the inferior group...inferior....thus maintaining superiority. This social conditioning, sadly, is wired into our brains...as fight or flight...or survivial of the fittest...the meek shall inherit the earth...whatever. BUT... as GI JOE used to say... "knowing is half the battle".

This week, a friend sent me an article about the supreme court's ruling to allow obese people 2 seats for the price of one when flying. I was thrilled with the court's sensitive recognition of such a need. I was not so thrilled with the insensitive comments that followed! I was devastated! The very first comment was about how unfair and ridiculous it is to cater to 'those gluttons who do not know when to put their forks down". Then, a Frankenstein-esque frenzied mob of negative comments followed..."the obese are a disgusting bunch of lazy slobs whose very presence leaves a scar on mankind!!!!" Other comments included that the obese are ugly, stinky, greasy, obnoxious...you get the picture. I went on to read the same article posted in different forums all over the Internet and all of them had similar postings. One moron actually suggested that everyone should eat as much as they can so they can have an entire row to themselves in an airplane. Now there's a lifetime goal!! I was absolutely heart broken and I felt totally helpless. This behavior is right in front of your face everyday. The fat person in the movies is always a dufus, clown, idiot, fall guy....background music...wallflower.Talk shows have done the 'fat suit' experiment time and time again with the same results...The fat person gets shoved in the back of the restaurant. Well 'boo-hoo'...the model chick still gets to take the fat suit off when the cameras get turned off. Nowadays, it is politically incorrect to be derogatory to anyone for anything EXCEPT the FAT. Let's just publically acknowledge the big-ass bulls eye on the fat people....it has always been there anyway. Everybody laughs...nobody gets hurt...right? I am ashamed to be human today.

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”-Thomas Edison