Ebony & Ivory: ‘No power on earth is going to be able to stop the idea of one race – the human race’

I’m a brand guy.

Professionally, there are few things I love more than to have one-to-one conversations with the brains behind the brands, the people behind the products and so on.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have had once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to interview some of the most influential business leaders of our time. For example, I’ve chatted with:

• Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson, about the early entrepreneurial influence of his 96-year old mother, Eve;
• ‘Shark Tank’ investor, Mark Cuban, about becoming a billionaire at age 41; and
• Microsoft boss, Satya Nadella, about his lifelong love of cricket!

But in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police (not to mention the police killings of countless other unarmed black men, women and *children* whose names aren’t so instantly recognisable), I’ve increasingly found myself contemplating an entirely different subject and one that is also very close to my heart. Yes, I’m talking about race.

I’m certainly no expert on the subject. So, I decided to have a socially-distanced fireside chat with two titans of race relations – one expert from the UK and the other from the US – and, with that, the ‘Ebony & Ivory’ mini-series was born.

What is the Ebony & Ivory mini-series about?

The Ebony & Ivory mini-series is an interracial, international, intergeneration conversation about race.

It’s named after the famous 1982 song by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney (a personal favourite of mine), which positively addresses racial harmony and integration.

What is the aim of the Ebony & Ivory mini-series?

The aim of the mini-series is to examine the state of race relations by comparing and contrasting the perspectives of two seemingly polar opposite anti-racism advocates – a young, emerging black female voice from the UK and an older, established white female voice from the US.

Who is the final guest of the Ebony & Ivory mini-series?

Last time out, I talked to my first guest of the mini-series, lawyer and political/women’s rights activist, Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu.

This week, I caught up with Dr. Jane Elliott.

The former schoolteacher turned anti-racism educator is the creator (although she calls herself an “adapter”) of the world-famous ‘Blue eyes, Brown eyes’ anti-racism exercise.

Despite insisting that she has “no intention of becoming a leader,” Elliott has undoubtedly led the anti-racism charge – on a global scale – for the last 52 years.

The ‘Blue eyes, Brown eyes’ anti-racism exercise

In the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. just 24 hours earlier, Elliott set aside her original lesson plan and instead devised an exercise to give her all-white third-grade (eight and nine-year old) students in Riceville, Iowa, a sense of what prejudice, discrimination and racism felt like.

The teacher split her class into two groups based on a physical trait that they had no control over: eye colour. She then assigned blue-eyed students to one group and brown-eyed students to another and treated each group differently – based solely on the colour of their eyes.

On the first day of the exercise, Elliott convinced the brown-eyed students that they were not only superior to their blue-eyed peers but, for this reason, they were entitled to exclusive privileges. The next day, she reversed the roles of the groups.

The results of the exercise were astonishing. Elliott observed children who were otherwise “wonderful” and “thoughtful” become “nasty, vicious and discriminating.”

For several decades, Elliott has repeated the exercise – not just with local schoolchildren, but with college students and professionals all around the world. The outcomes were the same whenever (and wherever) she performed the exercise: people would oppose each other for no other reason than the colour of their eyes.

Latterly, Elliott has delivered anti-racism lectures worldwide and provided diversity training to Fortune 500 corporations such as IBM, AT&T and GE to name but a few. She has also trained the IRS, US Navy and the FBI no less!

Elliott has appeared on (among other things) the Oprah Winfrey Show on five occasions and, in 2018, she featured in Hollywood A-lister Jada Pinkett-Smith’s ‘Red Table Talk’ on Facebook Watch. She has also been listed by textbook editor, McGraw-Hill, as one of the 30 notable educators of all time – alongside the likes of Confucius, Plato and Aristotle.

More recently, in June 2020, when former LinkedIn CEO turned Executive Chairman, Jeff Weiner, was asked who he admired for their “continued demonstration of compassion,” he said: “A number of great examples to choose from but, if ‘continued’ is part of the criteria, I would start with Jane Elliott, who has been teaching compassion for 52 years.

“The documentary, ‘A Class Divided,’ forever changed my perspective on the fact compassion can be taught and was the inspiration behind the creation of thecompassionproject.com.” 

What is Jane Elliott doing today?

A recent New York Times headline, ‘The Return of Jane Elliott,’ doesn’t reflect the reality that Elliott didn’t actually go anywhere.

The truth is though that the extra-judicial killing of George Floyd has seen Elliott’s seminal work experience a recent (not to mention timely) resurgence.

Speaking from her home in Iowa, she confirms this: “I have, indeed, been inundated with requests to comment on the past as it relates to the present and I hope that my statements are changing the minds of those who might have voted for Donasaurus T. Rump. But I’m not sure those people can be caused to change, regardless of the circumstances.”

In her imitable, no-nonsense style, Elliott continued: “Nevertheless, I’d be foolish if I turned down the opportunity to speak on this topic at this time.”

Here’s how Part I of my conversation with Dr. Elliott unfolded. (Stay tuned for Part II next week.)

Jane Elliott. CREDIT: www.JaneElliott.com

Elliott on...the difference between a teacher and an ‘educator’

Johnson: You reportedly said that you would only want the ‘Blue eyes, Brown eyes exercise’ to be put into the hands of an ‘educator,’ not a teacher. What is the difference between an educator and a teacher?

Elliott: Teachers get things ready for the end-of-year or end-of-term testing.

I’m an educator. The word ‘educator’ comes from the Latin word ‘dūcō,’ which means ‘lead,’ the prefix ‘e,’ which means ‘out,’ the suffix ‘ate,’ which means ‘the act of’ and the suffix ‘or,’ which means ‘one who does.’

So, an educator is one who is engaged in the act of leading people out of ignorance. Instead of teaching “The three Rs” of reading, writing and arithmetic – only one of which begins with “r” (!) – an educator teaches “The three Rs” of rights, respect and responsibility.

“An educator is one who is engaged in the act of leading people out of ignorance.”

It’s absolutely essential that educators educate children to recognise the rights of others, to respect those rights and to be responsible for how well they respect those rights and how well they treat one another.

Johnson: Do you believe that all educators should be given the right to use the ‘Blue eyes, Brown eyes’ exercise?

Elliott: No, but if we have enough master educators at the third-grade level and every third-grader goes through this exercise – and it is done properly – they will come out of the exercise different from the way they went in and they will refuse to tolerate racist remarks being made in their presence ever again.

This is what happened with my third-graders and my junior high school students. When one of my third-graders went up to junior high, a teacher came down to the lunch room one day at noon.

My sister was substituting and this teacher said, “The worst thing just happened in my classroom!” She was really agitated. My sister replied, “Well, what’s wrong?” The teacher said, “I used the N-word. [She didn’t say ‘N-word,’ she actually said the word.] And one of those students said, ‘We don’t use that word in this school, Miss, and, if you do, I’m going to go out into the hall until you stop doing it.’” She continued: “What would you have done?”

My sister replied, “Well, I think I’d stop using the N-word.” The student had to teach the teacher how to teach. This is ridiculous!

Elliott on...the contribution of US Presidents – past and present – to race relations

Johnson: This is a two-part question for you, Jane. In your view, which US President in living memory has done:

a) the most to advance the cause of race relations in the US?; and

b) the least to advance the cause of race relations in the US?

Elliott: That’s easy!

The president who has done the most is ‘LBJ’ – Lyndon Baines Johnson [the 36th US President] – and the president who has done the least is the one we’re calling our “president” now.

Elliott on...anti-racism allyship

Johnson: In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, countless individuals and corporations around the world have pledged their support to the Black Lives Matter movement, some of which has turned out to be nothing more than “performative allyship.” First of all, what is your definition of allyship?

Elliott: To be an ally is to be a helper, but blacks don’t need help. They need an active partnership. When you say you’re going to help someone, this indicates that they aren’t as able as you are.

“To be an ally is to be a helper, but blacks don’t need help. They need an active partnership.”

Blacks have always been more able than I will ever be because they’ve learned what it’s like to be treated unfairly on the basis of a physical characteristic over which they have no control. They know what this is about. What they don’t have yet is a real group of people who want to be their partners in ending this.

Johnson: And what does bona fide corporate allyship look like to you?

Elliott: Well, corporations having people of colour and women represented at the executive level and money being spent on getting ready for what is coming – white people becoming a numerical minority in the US.

Corporations have got to hire people of all different colours. I didn’t say different “races” because there’s only one race. No power on earth is going to be able to stop the idea of one race – the human race.

“No power on earth is going to be able to stop the idea of one race – the human race.”

So, corporations have got to get women and people of different colours involved in corporations because these are the customers of the future. If corporations are going to do well with their future customers, they’re going to have to start appreciating people other than white males right now.

Within 30 years, white people will be a numerical minority in the US and there goes your customer base. So, folks, you better get your heads on straight and get this thing taken care of.

CREDIT: www.JaneElliott.com

Next week, tune-in for the final part of my conversation with Dr. Elliott. 

If you missed the first instalment of the mini-series, click on the link below:

Part I

Formerly an editor at Reuters, Kieron Johnson is a business reporter at BBC News. He is also a contributor to The Oprah Magazine, Fortune, Business Insider, Sky and The Telegraph.