Revolving_Door

Noreen Carnley SYG 2000-9613 April 20, 2012 Final Essay Project Revolving Door Society in the days of Ms. Elliot’s third grade class was a poster child for the four Theories of Prejudice which are the; Scapegoat Theory, Conflict Theory, Authoritarian Personality and Culture Theory. Just through the features Ms. Elliot ascribes to the superior and inferior groups shows the characteristics society has built in the stereotypes. Superior people were smarter, quick learners, more privileges, clean and healthy. Inferior people were not smarter, slow to learn, did not follow direction, lazy, less or no privileges, greedy, had to wait for them, unclean and may cause disease. Some characteristics were set forth by the teacher, Ms. Elliot and others blurted out by the third graders. No doubt they learned them through culture which stands by the ‘Culture Theory’. The children have not lived long enough to have their own rigid and unfair generalizations about an entire group of people. Prejudice is rooted in culture by people with authoritarian personalities. It was easy for Ms. Elliot to pray on the weak. The behavior of the third graders would be considered normal behavior of any third grade child. Ms. Elliot being an authoritative figure was able to impose her will on others. Thomas Szasz states ‘to label simply enforces conformity to the standards of people powerful enough to impose their will on others’. Just as Hitler blamed the Jews, gays, mentally ill for the cause of all evil and impurity during his reign, he also used them as scapegoats for the bigger issue at hand. Society back then did the same to blacks, used them as scapegoats, to justify oppressing others as stated in the Conflict Theory, all to advance their capitalist ways. To use them as slaves to gain profit through cheap labor just as in today’s society with the immigrants. Ms. Elliot selectively interpreted behavior to confirm the stereotypes assigned. The inferior girl forgot her glasses, just as any third grader of any eye color may do. The inferior boy was not at the correct page in his reading book and Ms. Elliot assessed inferior people had to be waited on, stating ‘you will notice we spend a lot of time waiting on brown eyed people’ (the inferior eye color). All the third graders had a look of confusion each time Ms. Elliot would make and unfair generalization about the entire brown eye colored people when only one child would be performing the action. Such a simple concept, third graders could see how unfair it is to unfairly generalize yet grown adults in society refuse to admit the unjust. The lesson learned by the third graders was much different than the lesson learned by the prison guards. Yes neither group were happy about the privileges taken away from them but when all was said and done with the third graders it brought unity within them all. They had gone through some of their greatest fears together; a form of intimacy shared between a family was shared in a classroom and years later at the reunion. The adult prison guards expressed their frustrations more with wanting to cause an up rise against authority, which was Ms. Elliot. Brainwashing seems to come easier to perform on children then it is on adults. The hostility was thick and none of the guards in the inferior or superior groups seemed to unite as one. Everyone remained isolated and let the strong willed speak up. In the third grade class the children united in their individual groups, also comforting each other at recess. With unity the children also felt many other emotions that were expressed through their body language. The inferior group would be fidgety, stayed to themselves, aggressive towards the Superior when hackled by them. Through their own words they expressed ‘they felt like they were in jail and the key thrown away’ another boy stated ‘I felt like a dog on a leash’. The film and teacher emphasized how the labels become self-fulfilling prophecies. Academic abilities soared when the children were treated as superior beings. The children in the third grades classes were tested weeks prior to the brown eyed and blue eyed exercise, during and after the exercise. When the children were treated as the superior group they tested above their average ability, when they were treated as inferior their test scores plummeted to below their average scores. Harvard University was sent the test scores and the professors along with Ms. Elliot believe once they realized their full capacity on the superior days they were able to maintain the above average scores weeks after the exercise. This shows how a stereotype (label) can greatly affect a human being, also known to be a stigma which is a master status overpowering other dimensions of identity so that a person is discredited in the minds of others and socially becomes isolated. Which some of the third graders expressed through their body language. Just as Harold Garfinkel stated regarding the ‘degradation ceremony’, a person gains a stigma informally as others begin to see the individual in deviant terms. Sometimes, an entire community stigmatized a person in a public way. Just as we do to people of difference. Ms. Elliot stated she hoped there would be a time when her exercise would not be needed, we all wish that a time has come but it has not. We are doing the same thing with minorities and illegal immigrants today. Society may be getting better at hiding it through institutional discrimination. I do believe this class is still needed due to the active discrimination today against immigrants, women, and the lower class anyone not conforming to what society has set at a social norm, even if the society is run by authorities capitalist people. At the beginning of the book we discussed the role of nature and nurture in the importance of the development of our children. When a child is born into being black, a women, minority or different then was society has deemed as normal there are automatic prejudices built in culture that haunt us at birth, a master status is already ascribed. Segmund Freud, Jean Paget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Killigan all have their own theory on childhood development but they all agree that the early stages of childhood are the most critical in moral development. I learned a great deal of the latent affects discrimination has on individuals. With the academic scores rising above average and the cloud of depression that hovered over the inferior group it shows that not only are privileges taken away from individuals who are discriminated against but there whole self being is formed. Not only do minorities have to deal with the act of discrimination they have to live their whole lives knowing they will be treated differently every day that they wake up, the no matter what they achieve through personal merit it will never outweigh the master status of being a minority.