How would you label yourself? You get one word. OK, give yourself a two or three-word phrase. Is that fair? Accurate? Would it tell someone who you are? Red Sox fan? Farmer? Retired? Liberal?
And what would the person seeing that label conclude? Might it be filtered through their biases?
I’m working on a writing project where I’m thinking a lot about stigmas. How we categorize people. How we label people. I’m writing about addicts. Alcoholics. Evangelical Christians. What do those labels make you think of?
This particular blog post is inspired by a video I just watched and a book I’m reading.
The video is a political ad. I’m still mulling what I think about the politics of it, but it’s an extraordinary social statement for these days.
It’s an introductory ad for a newly-declared candidate running against Kentucky’s senior senator and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The ad is about labels. I won’t spoil it anymore, watch it for yourself (make sure you pay attention to very the beginning.) It’s well-conceived and well-executed commentary. Whatever you think of the politics, the candidate, Mike Broihier, is as right as a person can be when he observes, “Labels are powerful things.”
The book is Don’t Label Me. An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times, by Irshad Manji. I’ve only just started reading it. It looks like the incredible conversation in-store is between the author and her dog. I don’t know what I think about how that discussion is going to turn out, but one promising early sign is on the importance of us respecting each other, in all our differences. What made me pause was her exploration of the derivation of the word “respect,” coming from the Latin to see someone in a new light. Think about it. “Re,” as in “again.” And “spect,” meaning, see, as in “spectacles,” “spectator.”
Let’s give people the respect of taking a second look at them, whoever they are. Whoever we think they might be. Here’s an assignment for the day to make the world a better place: make an effort to avoid labeling someone.
