Brown, blue, and it opened many eyes to the meaning of race

Jane Elliott has blue eyes.

The years have turned her once-brown hair a bright snowy white, and at 75 years old she's rounder, maybe shorter, than she used to be. But eye color doesn't change.

Elliott, an Iowa teacher, made deliberate use of that in 1968 when she created a now-famous exercise for her classroom of white third-graders. It was the day after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and she was struggling to explain the concept of racism.

She hit upon an idea: For an entire day, she conducted her class as if the brown-eyed children were superior to those with blue eyes. Elliott eventually made headlines, appeared on "The Tonight Show"and became the subject of multiple documentaries.

Three decades later, my high school sociology teacher played us snippets of a news program about the "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise. For a 16-year-old Korean adoptee growing up in Iowa, the most fascinating aspect was this: Elliott had made history in Riceville, two hours from my hometown.

The daughter of white parents, I grew up in a predominantly white city, attended an overwhelmingly white school and interacted mostly with white friends. The subject of race in my community was hidden, buried under rhetoric that insisted we remain "colorblind."

Elliott was the first white person I ever heard who admitted to the privileges of whites, acknowledging that visible differences affect how the world perceives us. Her words sparked a hunger in me for more.

My first year in college, I took courses on race and ethnicity and Asian American history. Race, I learned, permeated everything, and it was OK to say so. I found myself with strong opinions and a circle of outspoken black and Asian friends with whom to share. The world felt bigger, and I felt empowered.

Much of my decision to move to Los Angeles eight years ago was to answer a longing to live somewhere diverse. When I discovered Elliott quietly living nearby, it seemed fortuitous that I had become a reporter. I could interview the woman who unknowingly sent me in a new direction.

Now 30 years old, I am standing in front of Elliott's winter home in Sun City, shaking her hand and looking straight into her blue, blue eyes. It is a day to remember: a sea-colored canvas for a sky, streaming sunlight, whispering breeze. And it is one of those moments when fate flashes in your mind and you know you are exactly who and where you are supposed to be.