Labels are sticky
An acquaintance was recently telling me the tale of some historic family troubles, and concluded with, “He was an alcoholic,” as if that explained everything. From there I could theoretically infer the broad scope of the problem. And that disturbed me. This was her relative! Surely there was more to him than that!
Way back in prehistoric times, when I was in school learning to be a speech-language pathologist, there was not much ado about being “politically correct.” Hashtags, tweets, and Facebook had not yet been invented.
Still, I was taught to take care not to refer to a person who stutters as “a stutterer.” That label defines a person as if the fact that they stutter is the most elemental thing about them. But it’s not. I have known people who happen to stutter. Some were competent professionals. Some were capable students. One was even a speech-language pathologist, herself. I have never met a person who was first and foremost a “stutterer.”
We, as a species, persistently do this kind of labeling—the kind that sticks, and sometimes keeps us from seeing the entire picture. I do think our instant feedback culture is making us think twice about it in some instances. But pervasive change takes time.
I have known people — loved ones, even— who drank alcohol to excess, or did drugs, or indulged in too many calories. But the terms “alcoholic,” or “addict,” or “fat,” didn’t resonate as the ultimate description of the person in question.
To lead with such labels is to forget about all the other traits that create the whole, and often to limit the amount of compassion one feels for another human stuck in the quandary of an addiction or obsession. Or perhaps no compassion is required: We might well be speaking of one who has made a conscious decision to be happy with the self, regardless of what others perceive as a predicament.
But labeling isn’t a problem only with addictions, obsessions or disabilities. (Even the word “disabled” has the capacity to be a blinding label.) It happens also to people who don’t fit into neuro-typical or gender-typical stereotypes.
I recently read a letter in an advice column (I love advice columns. Sometimes I learn things, sometimes they make me feel like I am really well balanced) from a mother whose child was gay, but had said nothing about it. Had never “come out,” as it were.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” the mother asked when a turn of events made it evident.
“Why should I have to?” was, essentially, the child’s response. And an explanation ensued: Heterosexuals aren’t expected to announce, at some point, that they are heterosexual. To “come out” pronounces some degree of “abnormality.” It focuses on the difference—rather than simply an aspect of the rainbow.
The mother just wanted to share the good lesson she had learned.
So, think before you label. Maybe that “fat, alcoholic, queer stutterer,” is quite content, thank you. No judgment required. Maybe he’s a prolific reader and a great teacher of literature, who likes to indulge in foods from cultures around the world paired with just the right wines while enjoying dates with other intellectual gentlemen, and doesn’t give a hoot if it takes him a little extra energy to produce a sentence. But even if he’s not content, he is more than the sum of a string of hasty descriptors. You know what they say—Let ye without differences (you perfectly normal people) cast the first label.