Indeed, are not those of us who strongly identify with labels (race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.) also among those who strongly affiliate with label-centric causes? And don't those of us who strongly affiliate with label-centric causes insist on the preeminence of our agendas over those advocated by other label groups? In fact, don't those of us who champion label-centric agendas brandish our suffering as testimonies of our label-centric experiences, whereupon we elevate our agonies above all other torments? And should our personal label-centric sufferings require more heft to one up other label-centric crusaders, don't we guilefully rally the collective burdens of all of our label-centric brethren?
Which begs the question: has label-centric advocacy devolved into one upmanship vis a vis label martyrdom?
Because the appeal for peace, freedom, and equality for all, is not a label-centric appeal. Nor is it an appeal driven by label-centric experiences, history, or ideology. Despite emphatic protestations otherwise by label-centrists.
Like everyone, no one has ever not been prejudged, offended, mistreated, and oppressed vis a vis their race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. No one. Label-centric crusaders who insist that only their label-centric brethren experience prejudice, offense, mistreatment, and oppression suffer from self-imposed myopia and abiding conceit.
Moreover, no one has ever not prejudged, offended, mistreated, or oppressed others vis a vis their race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. No one. Label-centric crusaders who insist that their label-centric brethren are incapable of prejudice, offense, mistreatment, and oppression suffer from shameless narcissism and immeasurable arrogance.
Needless to say, our wherewithal to nurture and harm each other, vis a vis every label imaginable, heeds no label across time immemorial. For labels themselves possess no inherent virtue to inoculate us from myopia and narcissism. Nor do labels themselves possess any inherent virtue to elevate the suffering of some above and beyond others.
Rather than a superior means of empowering ourselves while substantiating our justifications for disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages -- labels are prisons of separatism that intensify our neurotic fixation with the solipsistic premise that no one but our label-centric brethren can relate to our label-centric experiences, history, and ideology -- and only our label-centric brethren and label-centric causes possess merit and value superior to all other label-centric brethren and label-centric causes. Hence, our war of one upmanship vis a vis label martyrdom is simply the logical evolution of label-centric myopia and narcissism devolving into xenophobic disengagement from our collective membership within the human community dedicated to enhancing the lives of every one of us.
More
The reality of -isms and -ists is heart wrenching to be sure.
But we rarely see -isms and -ists in their entireties. Instead, we filter our experiences so as to myopically exclude that which we refuse to concede -- realities of -isms and -ists that don't align with the one truth and the one reality of our label-centric experiences, history, and ideology.
For how better to reserve our deepest sympathies for our own label-centric causes and our coldest hostilities towards our label-conscribed antagonists -- than to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others -- on the basis of nothing more than labels?
- M.
Addendum
When conversations about label-centrism and label-centric topics are limited to label-holders -- we choose equal -- but separate -- at all costs -- every time.
For the solutions to our most dire social dilemmas do not exclusively exist within pods of homogeneous label groups. Because membership within a label group does not automatically make one an expert on any human dilemma, much less those that have plagued humankind for eons. Likewise, the mere lack of membership within one label group as opposed to another does not automatically make one oblivious, ignorant, or obtuse to the dilemmas that have challenged humankind for time immemorial.
Is it not conspicuously manifest that these 'truths' -- relentlessly proliferated by label-centrists -- are fundamentally incompatible with unity and equality for all? For as long we continue to obscure our communal humanness in favor of labels beyond all else -- we will continue to fervently oppose unity and equality for all in favor of their very antitheses: voluntary separatism and the zealous advocacy of disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages.
In the end, no #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. makes anyone more than anyone else -- no more than no #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. makes me or you more than you or me.
No label is more authentic and deserving than any other label. For isn't the underlying premise that propels our vainglorious war of one upmanship vis a vis label martyrdom the presumption that our labels merit the most extravagant remediation and reparation above all others, because our suffering is the most authentic and the most deserving of all human suffering? Is our conceit so rampant that it blinds us to the hardships and torments of others across time immemorial; is our arrogance so all-consuming that we refuse to acknowledge that we prejudge, offend, mistreat, and oppress others, solely on the basis of labels, as vilely as every -ist we facilely despise?
Indeed, our perseverative obsession with labels and vehement advocacy of label-centrism are as assuredly destructive as every -ism. For in our zeal to vindicate our label-centric fanaticism, we're all too eager to dissemble and condone -isms in service to label-centric martyrdom. Meanwhile, labels aren't winning the war of one upmanship: -isms and -ists are.
- M.
Note
In this example, the author's membership within a label group grants her carte blanche to trumpet -isms and -ists, with patent indifference: The Horrible Tale Of My One Night Stand With A Racist (BuzzFeed 10/24/15; note the title now reads: The Terrible Tale Of My One Night Stand).
Needless to say, while the author's overt -isms are jarringly offensive, especially in light of the author's characterization of her experience, the truth is that all staunch label-centrists commit egregious -isms. For in order to align oneself with any label, it's necessary to identify oneself as different and separate from other label groups, which, vis a vis label-centric self-empowerment, concurrently marginalizes and depreciates other label groups by varying degrees.
Otherwise, why differentiate and separate oneself by label, at all? Isn't the insidious corollary of label-centrism the premise that some label groups deserve compassion and sensitivity, while other label groups deserve antipathy and contempt, on the basis on nothing more than labels? How is this treatment of others -- moralized as 'deserved' -- based solely on labels -- not -isms?
While we are all different in notable ways -- when we inject these differences in between ourselves and each other and uphold them as intrinsic and resolute -- we fabricate immense intractable barriers between ourselves and each other. Thereupon, we rely on our capricious and ephemeral willingness to 'see' past our vast and disparate differences for the simplest of simple transactions, i.e. relating to each other as humans qua humans.
Is it really not beyond our capacity as human beings to see ourselves and each other as human, first and foremost, rather than [fill in the blank: #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.]? For what's there to see past -- if we're all human?
- M.
