A Class Divided Response Paper

Words: 490
Pages: 2

Systemic racism is viewed as a higher power aimed at a certain class of people based on the color of their skin and not on the real issue. Michelle Alexander explains that some studies have shown that the percentage of prisoners is greater among people with brown skin color and African Americans. Going to jail has destroyed their lives, and there have been innocent people who have gone to jail just because of the color of their skin. After they get out of jail, it is already hard for them to adapt to the world as the world does not accept them because of their criminal record. These rejections have prompted some of them to fall into drugs or commit a crime (2013 YouTube video). This is an issue not only towards African Americans, but there is racism towards people of a different ethnicity, gender, culture, or social …show more content…
The news has illustrated African Americans as criminals and the police as corrupt or racist. The video “A Class Divided” tells the story of an experiment that a teacher named Jane Elliot did with her third-grade class. This experiment helped the children understand how Black people felt when they were being segregated by getting them to think that brown-eyed people were not as smart as people with blue eyes. In the experiment, as the teacher continued to talk badly about the brown- eyed students, the results showed that children with brown eyes experienced a decline in their grades, and those with blue eyes were more successful. Also, she started to observe that blue-eyed kids started to mistreat brown-eyed kids. Then, the next day, the kids switched roles, and the results changed as their roles changed, too (1985, PBS video). This experiment shows that people can be manipulated by a higher power, just like the media, because they can control what they want the people to