Amor de Cosmos

Jane Elliot, who became famous with her 1968 Brown Eyed/Blue Eyed experiment which taught third graders to discriminate against each other (Here’s the documentary) has spent the last few years working with adults about racism.

In the U.S., I use the Dove Counterbalance Intelligence Test, which was a test designed for the purpose of giving white folks a chance to have their IQ scores based on their ability to correctly respond to material about which they know practically nothing. The items on the test require a familiarity with life in the black community in the ’50s and ’60s. Of course white people in this country can’t pass it. After all, they’ve never been expected to know anything about a reality other than their own. On the other hand, we give culturally biased IQ tests in the classrooms every day all over this country, and children of color are routinely expected to pass them. In England and Scotland I use the Elliott Discrimination Inventory Test, in which the items are about life in various countries in the U.K. And in Australia I use the Koori test, in which the items are about the aboriginal cultures. White folks fail the tests unfailingly. (From here.)