Wednesday, April 07, 2004

-*- Labels.  

Race. Gender. Class. Religion. Occupation. Belief. Ethnicity. Nationality.
Chinese, Asian, European, American, African-American, Afghans, Arabs.
Male, Female, Intersexed, Homosexual, Heterosexual.
Working Class, Middle Class, Upper Class.
Christian, Protestant, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim.
So many labels in the world. Why make things so hard when we can just plainly label ourselves as Human Beings? Why do we classify ourselves? Differentiate ourselves from others? Create our own identities? Why? Point of it all? Complications.
Worst of it all, we do not decide our own "labels"! The society does that to us. Label us according to how we look, what we do, where we come from, how we behave etc etc. Isn't it scary to know that you are not born with a clean slate of identity? That you have to behave a certain way so that the society accepts you? There are so many norms in the society, and so many different societies in which the norms all differ. How do human beings develop over so many years, with so many labels attached to them, willingly or otherwise?
To add to the many complications, stereotypes are formed with the labels. African-Americans are punks? Whites are of higher class? Asians conservative? Americans liberal? Afghans terrorists? Why create so much complications to one race? The Human Race.
We are one race, and yet we create identities to differ ourselves from others. We always hear people saying that they belong to a certain country. But seriously, we belong to the world (I know this sounds SUPER cliche and damn funny.. but we do right?).
Truth be told, I have my own prejudices against certain groups of identities too. But if we can be tolerant, can we make the world a better place for our future generations? I believe so, but it's definitely very hard to do that. But it's a dream, bigger than you can imagine. And almost impossible, I'd say.
I don't know if my entry made sense, but I suddenly have a strong view about it. I know this entry doesn't sound like me, cos I am guilty of racism. But I do hate the people who create the labels in the world. One good example is myself. I have created a label for people that are not like me, I am guilty of it. Yes I am. But I am harmless.

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