Labels are like tattoos on our brains. Attached with super glue, it’s nearly impossible to rip, scratch or peel.
Be very careful what or who you label. Your brain will store it in that unerase-able safe.
Speaking to a businessman in his office, someone walked in, without an appointment. Excusing himself, he met the customer and after a brief, muffled conversation, he returned quite frustrated. He started a rant about the word “brother”. The customer had called him “brother”. He rubbed the top of his bald head and looked at me and said, why do people think I’m their brother? They might as well use the word nigger. I’m not their brother. It’s so derogatory and frustrating. It’s ok for two black guys to refer to each other as brother. It’s ok for two white guys to call each other brother. But I ain’t your brother. Do you understand what I’m saying Bro?
Well, did you ever think that brother is just another word for friend. Some use the word pal or man, or bro. Maybe it has nothing to do with race, but everything to do with being friendly.
You don’t know what I’ve seen.
Fair enough. I have similar conversations with my African-American daughter almost every day. She’s 15, confused, scared, and feeling alone in a white town with one other black resident. I don’t know, but I know there are lots of people who don’t mean to use hurtful words. They are just labelled on their brains.
Yeah labels. Like cops.
Exactly. Some think all cops are bad. Some think they are all good.
The label is based on whatever reality you experience.
The label is based on absolutes, like everything is binary: black or white, truth or lie, right or wrong.
Your truth has absolutely everything to do with labels
Yet we forget about those little gray lines between the absolutes.
When we place a label, we use past experiences to form an opinion. We stop working together to find a solution. The more we separate from each other, the more we become polarized.
I was thinking of the song “Signs” by The Five Man Electrical Band this morning. Written in 1971, that song is as relevant today as ever.
It’s a song that sees the beauty in the natural world and the songwriter struggles with the labels and limits others place on him because he’s the guy who’s living in a perfect world while everyone else is living inside a box, trying to make everything perfect.
The rebels see the song as a rallying cry. The conformists think it’s a song about rebellion. I think the song is about the removal of labels in order to live a peaceful, enjoyable life.
I’m as guilty as the next person to place labels. My personal experience with the police always comes down to that one time when Constable Dufour assaulted me and threatened to arrest me for something I didn’t do. He knew I wasn’t afraid of him. And when I told him I was going to talk to my law professor to see what I could do, he let me go.
But I’m not black. And I can’t imagine what could’ve happened if I was.
Maybe I’m not your brother.
Maybe I don’t understand the shit you’ve gone through.
But I can sympathize with your struggles.
And I would love to help you.
That’s what friends do.
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