This is a link to an article in the Topeka Capital-Journal from today, 11/22/01
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/112201/kan_foreignattire.shtml
Basically, what this student wanted to do was test people’s reactions to someone dressed as a “foreigner.” So she dressed in the full body covering robes of a woman from a Muslim culture and went to the local Wal-Mart to see what, if anything, would happen. Kind of interesting. I just wondered what someone else might think of an experiment like this.
These types of “experiments” to “just see how people react” are called trolling. It’s not just for the internet anymore!
IIRC, back in the early-mid 60s, a white journalist made himself up as a black guy. He might actually have written a book about his experiences. Wish I could remember the details.
In Israel a few years ago a journalist dressed up as an Arab and took menial jobs to see what it was like. The discrimination he encountered was quite an eye-opener.
Possibly,“Black Like Me”.
You know, I was thinking of that book when I read the newspaper article. John Howard Griffin was the author.
The book was called Black Like Me, the author was John Howard Griffin.
StG
Yep, “Black Like Me”
And I don’t agree with grim. Deliberately being obnoxious or controversial when you know how people are going to react just to get a reaction is trolling.
However, to set yourself up to experience life as others do is not trolling. It’s a good way to expand your understanding and possibly to open other people to new ways of looking at the world.
Or sociology class experiments.
The teacher in our class gave us an option of getting into a crowded elevator and doing one of the following:
1)Striking up a conversation with anyone, or
2)Asking if they felt “good all under.” (From the Haynes commercials of many years ago.)
I told her like hell am I going to embarrass myself for the sake of this class!
Instead, she let me observe people on a bus.
Stupid class.
The second I saw the subject of this thread I knew the book “black like me” would be mentioned. That is an amazing book.
One wonders who “experiences life” clad head to toe in a home made robe and veil in the Wal Mart of Topeka, Kansas. I know of only one person. Amatuer psychologist and raving looney tune Kaila Williams.
Yeah…speaking of which, did anyone ever see that Boy Meets World episode where they dress up as girls to write a newspaper article called…“Chick Like Me”? “Trolling” or “experiencing”- whatever you want to call it- is all over the place. 
I was trying to think of an analogy to demonstrate how retarded this little experiment is, and I finally found one.
So, tomorrow I’m going to dress in a full cowboy outfit, complete with hat and leather assless chaps and go down to my local Wal Mart to test the tolerance of peoples of the western states.
Plus, I’m going to stutter like a gibbering chimp, just in case my bizarre parody of a cultural costume isn’t offensive enough. Just like my hero, Kaila Williams
Uh, grim, not to nitpick or anything but the store wasn’t in Topeka, if you read the article carefully. The store was in Emporia, the article itself was in the Topeka paper. And it seems a bit unkind to call the girl a “raving looney”. Young and naive maybe, but it sounds as if she really did want to learn something.
I remember back when Desert Storm was on the husband of a coworker of mine visited her at work. He came in his Army fatigues(he was in the National Guard). He happened to have dark eyes, dark curly hair, but a relatively light complexion. A little girl with her mother at the bakery counter leaned over and asked her mommie “Is that an Iraqi soldier?” So people are affected by dress and appearance, and given the current situation I think this girl wanted to find out how things were in her town.
There are quite a few international students at the local college. Some of the are obviously Muslim. Others are black or Hispanic. When I see such people (among others) at Mall Wart, I react the same way I do towards anyone I see there (excluding acquaintances, friends, and relatives, of course): I ignore them.
Unless spoken to, in which case I reply. Or bored and silly, in which case I start making fun of the ‘educational material’ in the checkout.
I won’t say the interviewee’s observances are naive or juvenile, but she’s none to bright, either, is she? What was she expecting? Hugs in the vacuum cleaner aisle, perhaps? “Welcome to America” next to the lamps?
Remember that episode of Saturday Night Live in which Eddie Murphy disguised himself as a white man and “experimented with prejudice”? He was on a city bus, and at a bus stop when the only black passenger gets off the bus, the doors close and a white person puts on some music and everyone gets up and dances. I can’t remember the other scenes. But I thought it was hilarious.
I remember that sketch! He stops at a newstand to buy a paper and the(white) clerk tells him “Take it, it’s free” So he learns minorities have to pay for some things whites don’t.
I agree with Zyada. However little real benefit this “experiment” may have had, I can only wonder if some of the “terrified” Mid-Westerners remotely rethought their ridiculous over-reactions.
I’ve always advocated giving people a “mental hot foot” just to wake them up. While I was in Denmark, I would go into a store and speak in Danish to the clerk. Just as I was leaving, I would toss off in pure American English, “thank you very much!”, just for the shocked look on their faces.
It is not as if this girl was assuming some sort of threatening posture or attitude. Quite the opposite, her garb made her much more vulnerable. That the people she encountered felt so vulnerable speaks volumes about xenophobia and bigotry. While her “experiment” is of dubious scientific value, I see it as having a lot of worth in trying to pry open some very narrow minds. I would have hoped that she could have spoken to some of the more over-reacting people she encountered in order to let them know why and what was happening. She might have had some genuine impact on a few people that day.
If the student made some folks reassess their prejudices and stereotypes, then that’s a good thing.
Calling it “trolling” is blowing the matter way out of proportion.
this whole thread reminds me of that schoolteacher who would segregate her students by the colour of their eyes in order to teach about how much of a Bad Thing prejudice is. I have no idea what her name is, but she’s been on many talk shows and documentaries and she’s been doing this since the 1960s … still, it is a great way to ram home the fact that prejudice is not cool to 7 and 8 year olds. and older kids, too.
That would be Jane Elliot. There’s a fantastic article about her here where interestingly enough, Elliot says that had she known the impact on her community, she would not have done it. Her children were taunted and her father’s business was boycotted until he went bankrupt.