Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes

"Stephen G. Bloom deftly narrates and analyzes a complex story. The reader is hooked from the start. I kept thinking this would make a great movie."--Kathryn Olmsted, author of Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism "This book is a vital record, part of a mosaic of analysis on racial attitudes in post mid-century America and how to address racism in the era Jane Elliott was in her zenith. It's important for many reasons, but doubly more so now in the era of BLM. Bloom brings this story forward and makes it essential reading for today."--Dale Maharidge, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning And Their Children after Them "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes is a great story, brilliantly told. But more than that, it is just what the subtitle advertises--a cautionary tale of race and brutality. For many, Jane Elliott is a hero. But, she and her legendary experiment are much more complicated than the celebratory lore would have us believe. Set aside what you think you know about racism, power, and privilege; forget what you may have heard about Elliott. Read this book and you will understand them in a way you never did before."--Joseph Margulies, Professor of Law and Government, Cornell University "Bloom delivers a compelling and cautionary tale of how Jane Elliott's eye experiment, with all white people, turned her into the foremother of today's puzzling "diversity training" industry. He takes us to Riceville and the world of classroom no. 10 to uncover the person behind the looming well-manicured persona by talking to the children, neighbors, and teachers who were all affected at different distances by Elliott's audacious and some say exploitative work. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes is a gripping story of love, betrayal, social justice, and personal ambition, a celebration of tradition and intolerance of difference wrapped up in one woman's bullheaded drive to make America confront its own racism but on her own terms. This is a book Elliot once commissioned and then soundly denounced, perhaps the best kind of endorsement."-- Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities