Quick to Judge?

Sophie, a Jamaican woman living in the U.S., became a little irritated recently while filling out a questionnaire that asked her to identify her ethnicity by checking a box. "There are no choices that relate to me on this form," she said. "I am not African-American. I am West Indian." Sophie quickly placed a check mark next to the "Other" box and wrote: Caribbean American in the space provided. "That's who I am," she said.

We are all guilty of making judgments about people from time to time, aren't we? Have you ever looked at a person and made what you thought was the correct determination about what that person's ethnicity or cultural background might be? PBS has an interesting exercise that gives people a chance to try [their] hand at "sorting" individuals to see if it matches how people think of themselves. Click here to give PBS' sorting test a try. The results might be a little surprising.