Preloading

The Anti-Racism Experiment That Transformed an Oprah Show Audience

Season 4 Episode 326
Aired on 01/01/2015 | CC tv-14
How would you feel if you were treated differently simply based on the color of your skin? Jane Elliott gave The Oprah Show audience members a chance to experience racism firsthand when she divided them into two groups: those who have blue eyes and those with brown eyes. The blue-eyes group was discriminated against while the people with brown eyes were catered to.

Jane, who has been conducted this anti-racism experiment with grade-school students since Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968, reflects on the illogic of racism. "Eye color and skin color are caused by the same chemical: melanin," she says. "There's no logic in judging people by the amount of a chemical in their skin. Pigmentation should have nothing to do with how you treat another person, but unfortunately, it does."

Watch to find out how Oprah's audience was transformed by Jane's experiment.