I Will Not Become Your Label

byFrenchfries5

1.5K followers

7 years ago

I have always considered myself a rather sheltered child. I grew up in a very small rural community in North Dakota. We played in the streets with our friends, and we knew it was time to go home when the street lights came on. I was a latchkey child. We ran wild at the farm, and played with crayfish in the creek. In school there were kids we dodged because we knew if you looked at them they might punch you, and in fact I did get a smashed pair of glasses. It didn't result in shouts of discrimination, letters to the newspaper, or ugly lawsuits. Mom marched me into the Optometrist, and I got new glasses. Simple!

Fast forward about 45-ish years... I seriously had to look up what the heck implicit bias was, because a politician just informed me I have it! I actually did the "deer in the headlight" looked at my husband and said "did she just call me a racist?"

People have all kinds of labels, several of which I had to look up again. What the heck is a Xenophobe? Oh don't worry, I know what it is now, and I also learned another one, but I don't think I'm misogynistic. Who is this little evil Label Gnome running around sticking labels on complete strangers. It is easier to label a stranger, based on an assumption, peacefully educating ourselves about our neighbor.

So where were the Label Gnomes when I was growing up? They were there, I believe, but they are proliferating at a terrifying speed. Why? Social media, internet access in the palm of our hand, corrupt media outlets with hidden agendas, breakdown of the family unit, political correctness... Our society has become so complicated.

We follow the wisdom that we become our labels, and this does not promote a healthy society. People bear these labels like an internal ticking time bomb. Maybe they go to their doctor for little pills (for depression) to help deal with their labels, or perhaps some will simply end their own lives.

For such a highly evolved society, it is interesting that we feel the need to attach labels to people, in order to understand them, or maybe it's that by attaching a label to someone we feel better about ourselves.

I refuse to acknowledge these new buzz word labels, and I talk openly to my kids about this, and what they mean for their self esteem. I urge everyone to soul search the issue as well.

Until Next Time,

Michelle

“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”
? Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Once you label me you negate me.”
? Søren Kierkegaard

“People are too complicated to have simple labels.”
? Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
? L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables