Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Bradley Mills
Blue eyes Brown eyes- video response
Soc376

This probably is my fifth time seeing a blue eyes/brown eyes documentary, but it surprisingly never gets old. It is really fascinatingwhat even children, first graders, are able to grasp. Something as complex and dynamic as racism, something that maybe seems obvious on the face of it, but requires a more dynamic understanding. Tosolve problems of racism requires intense interaction with members of different strata and groups, it requires “putting oneself in another’s moccasins.” This really demonstrates the fact that kids canin fact grasp and deal with serious topics. It shows how children can be empathetic and understanding if given the ability to see the issue from their own perspective. To me this video addresses awhole host of problems with today’s education and acculturation of the youth and provides one simple solution: “just tell it how it is!”
The only issue with that is that often times teachers, parents,and other adults really do feel like they are “telling it how it is” when they are in fact sugar coating serious social and historical issues, topics, and debates. Thanksgiving is right around thecorner and at elementary schools all across the country there will be kids in little pilgrim hats and others playing indigenous groups, and they will all share a in-class meal and everything will be happyand fun. What if, in the case of these thanksgiving celebrations the children were told the truth about thanksgiving? What if they were told the truth about systems of colonial exploitation? How theindigenous shortly after encounter with colonial invaders were subjected to ethnocide, disease, new hierarchies and social roles characterized the interaction amongst the various different groupsinvolved in the encounter?
I really feel that kids can handle the truth. They are often as many adults will often point out, more perceptive than we are. Many kids are willing to tell it how it is, as...