A Class Divided

Although i wasn't in class today i read the blog Sal had put up on his blog and watched the video "angry eyes". while watching this video, a memory popped into my head. i remembered that when i was in 3rd grade my class had participated in an activity just like this. it is still in my head a clear and vivid memory. it started like any other day in Mrs. Hindin's class, all of the classmates and I were in the room at the beginning of school. she then asked us to write down on a post it note what color eyes we had and to put it on the chalkboard at the front of the room in the respective sides, dark eyes, light eyes. at first i thought this was just a game we were going to play today but it turned out to be something different. she then told us that everybody with dark color eyes were not allowed to go out for recess and had to sit separately from the rest of the class. this was a pretty bad experience for me because during story time while the brown eyed kids and i sat separate from the rest i started crying. i remember the teacher telling me that this was an activity and that i had to stick through it for the rest of the week. after a couple more minutes of class, more children started to cry and the activity was over. now that i look back on this previous experience of mine and after watching the video and reading the blog about splitting the class up into black shirts and colored shirts, i now see that it was an activity on how people judge each other just based on what kind of clothes they wear, what color eyes they have, and the most obvious what skin color they are. just like these young minds in the movie they were very susceptible to judging others on what color eyes they had. this goes hand in hand with how everybody in the world has the sociological mindset about judging people solely based on their religion or skin tone. it is plain and obvious to see that the world is a very judgemental place and we must open our eyes and look beyond the skin color, color of clothes, and the color of eyes of the rest of the worlds people.