White People Not Getting The Point: A Channel 4 Special (2009)
A documentary special on Jane Elliot and her exercise in teaching 30 adults in the United Kingdom about racism in society, and people who absolutely refused to grasp the point.
these are great examples of white people who do not want to unlearn racism.
they do not want to battle against their white supremacy. they are comfortable being the powers of society. they are comfortable being perpetrators. they are uncomfortable being exposed to their racism. they do not want people of color to feel victims for their differences. but at the same time, they want to be victims, too. hmpf.
the school teacher scared me the most. she was most hard core about maintaining and defending her racism. and she teaches children! yikes.
Pearl Jarrett made the BEST points
The teacher dismissing statistics; wtf is this; that is the most shocking if anything. I can kind of figure out how she twisted their words to dismiss them but actual statistics and she just ignores them??
This is fascinating. At first I didn't get why people of colour were involved since there can't be reverse racism and asking them to 'oppress' white people is like, clearly they'd want to unless they're saints so it doesn't really make a point, however it works very well for what it changed into re more subtle racism which is what we see more now in the modern world/UK where people know they're "supposed to" be "politically correct". Ugh such a shitty phrase. So they deny everything and say of course they're not racist, but they continue to benefit from racism and perpetuate it, even if they don't realise.
I really like (genuinely as it makes a good unintentional point) the way the first woman in this photo set talks about how Jane Elliot made it too simple, separating people into black and white; all that stuff she said just made the complete opposite argument! I do know what she and the other white people who didn't want to ~oppress the blue-eyed people were saying though, even if they clearly missed the point and then [insert first pic in this set] happened and she just ignored Pearl's perf comebacks about white people refusing to actually empathise and instead using their own experiences to take the spotlight, to compare and pretend they're the exact same.
So there's me thoughts. Really recommend the video. It's not perfect, but very interesting.