A couple small tales to encourage thought and maybe lighten the mood a touch.
I know a teacher who has a pretty diverse class and somewhat large class size. And the various groups are constantly making insensitive comments to each other. Finally fed up they had the class line up by color! It was then pointed out that it had become very difficult to tell who was in what group. The bickering was greatly diminished.
The other was a caller to a show I listen to occasionally. The caller had nearly been kicked out of college his first week for checking "African-American" on one of the forms. This was a problem, as he was white. Of course the full story was that he then explained that he had been born in South Africa and was a naturalized citizen. So the term was technically entirely correct.(Yeah, maybe he made it up. It's still funny.)
Steve B
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