Being a director for Fish Camp this past year opened my eyes to a lot that I hadn't paid much attention to before. Its come to my attention that everyone (no matter how hard you try) is biased and prejudice. The mere fact that we have to tell ourselves not to be prejudice means that we are. Its how we are raised. It is in the history of every culture.
A specific thing that bothers me is when people try to say things like "Black or white, male or female, young or old, gay or straight... etc". Putting labels on people (besides being potentially hurtful) means that you are excluding so many others. There are more than 2 races/ethnicities, genders, age groups, and sexual orientations. If you want to list out every label you can think of, you would still be missing out. To miss out on even one "label" is failing to acknowledge the aspect of someone's personality that makes them truly unique. If we so desperately need to put labels on people, we should come up with 7 billion of them... one for every person in the world.
Putting even one "label" on another person is also failing to value anything else that is unique about them. As T.R. Knight (George O'Malley from Grey's Anatomy) said, "I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me." We get so caught up with our labels and first impressions that we overlook other qualities, good or bad, and every event that has helped define that person's life. Its sad that we miss out on so much about each other.
When I walk into a room, what do people see? I am a white male, probably college aged. I usually have clean clothes. I wear glasses. There are a number of assumptions that you could make about me. Most of those assumptions are probably true, but how do you know? Just because I am different than you, doesn't make us enemies. Just because we have similar qualities, doesn't make us friends.
The world isn't black and white, no matter how hard people try to see it that way. Looking at yourself, are you made up of extremes? Are all of your qualities middle of the road? What makes you unique?
What makes us all the same?
You should probably mention there are times you dye your hair green and grow your facial hair out something fierce. Walking into a room like that, you're gonna be labled with many more labels than, "clean, white, colleg-aged."
ReplyDeleteGlad I know who you are. I'm proud of you and love you so much.