Jane Elliott Quotes
We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables - the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers - to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.
Elliott, Jane. Blue Eyed. Directed by Bertram Verhaag, Denkmal Film, 1996.
Penn observed the fact that most American social relationships are not multicultural in that Blacks in a restaurant tend to eat with other Blacks, whites and Hispanics the same. While America has a multicultural and diverse work environment and use of public services, it is still rare to see very integrated churches, social clubs, parties and other social activities. While Penn’s observation is correct, the trend is towards much more socialization on racial, religious, cultural, and geographical basis. There is much more intermarriage than in the past and with integrated families, many of the other social pluralism will follow. It was once thought that intermarriage would be the last barrier to fall and would follow from school, church, and other social integration. However, it appears that it is the other way around.
Jane Elliott is an American diversity educator. As a schoolteacher, she became known for her "Blue eyes/Brown eyes" exercise, which she first conducted with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Publication in the local newspaper of compositions the children had written about the experience led to much broader media interest.
