Friday, May 6, 2016

A conversation with my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (1 of 2): Vehicle categorization.

For a class my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend was teaching, he had different cut-out pictures along a theme, and he had his students divide them into any categories of their own choosing, to see what categories they came up with.

(I've seen him do this before with pictures of different candies.)

For this exercise, he had pictures of many different vehicles, from jeeps to a Model T to a racecar to a toy car, and he was struck by how everyone grouped together the fire and police cars in a "Service" category, even though the only difference in make was a label on them.

"And I was surprised that the black students grouped together the fire car and police car, since in many communities, the police aren't necessarily there to serve you," he was like.

"Did you say that?", I was like, my jaw dropping.

"No," he was like, "But I thought it."

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