National Educational Television and Radio Center Perlmutter, Alvin H McCutchen, Dick Albertson, Eric Birnbaum, Max

Description

Episode Number: 165This hour-long documentary studies the biases underlying the 'enlightened' attitudes of many Americans-- in this case, 12 college students, reputedly lacking in prejudices, who have volunteered for a week-long workshop at Gloucester Harbor, Mass. The students, of different races and faiths, are under the guidance of Dr. Max Birnbaum, director of the Human Relations Laboratory at Boston U. But as the week progresses, any guise of a calm academic exercise is cast off, as the participants confront their underlying feelings-- and each other. This summer, NET conducted an experiment in group dynamics, aimed at one of society's deadliest underlying attitudes -- prejudice. It brought together college students of different faiths and races for a week-long workshop in an idyllic setting at Gloucester Harbor on Massachusetts' Cape Ann. The group was headed by Dr. Max Birnbaum, director of the Human Relations Laboratory at Boston U.; it included Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Negroes, and Orientals, all young people united under the guise of rationality. But the group included its catalytic agents -- an interracial couple and a Jewish boy who became the increasing targets of an admittedly bigoted Catholic boy; a militant young Negro and his racial opposite, a Negro girl who had repressed any feelings of "Negro-ness"; and a pink-cheeked Protestant, who moved from the stereotype of "Joe college" to a self-righteous evangelist as the week progressed.2028The film condenses into one hour of confrontation what is in fact a week's peeling away of guarded attitudes. Almost all of the action...

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Thirteen - New York Public Library

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Digital Commonwealth