Question D: Stanford Experiment

Wow, is my first response to this video. I have never seen the Stanford prison experiment and I find it extremely shocking and mind opening.

                When explaining this film in terms of racial differences, racial privilege and racial oppression I noticed the prisoners were clearly the oppressed minority group and the guards were made the privileged group. This privilege gave the guards the power to assume it was right to treat the prisoners as they did.  In this experiment, you see the prisoners rebelling with in the second day of the experiment. Professor Zimbardo states in his interview that the first rebellion was about the prisoners losing control and becoming anonymous people.         

                In Privilege, Power and Difference, Johnson writes “ a ‘black woman’ in Africa, therefore, who has not experienced white racism, does not think of herself as black or experience herself as black, nor do the people around her.” This quote best explains the rebellion of the prisoners. Before this experiment, the prisoners came from a large culture known as the student body where they were all accepted as students. Then when the students entered this experiment they began to be identified differently because of the new labels they were given.

                This experiment clearly illustrates privilege, power and oppression in our society. Another experiment was shown where a teacher shocked a student when they answered questions incorrectly. As described by Professor Zimbaro, this experiment proves that when an individual is told by ‘authority’ to commit violence against others, the individual will do so for no logical reason. The Stanford experiment shows similar results on authority. The guards are given power over the prisoners. This power leads to the discrimination of their peers.