Old - Young
Attractive - Unattractive
Productive - Lazy
Republican - Democrat
Liberal - Conservative
Black - White
Racist - Anti-racist
Rich - Poor
Gay - Straight
Pro-life - Pro-choice
Muslim - Christian
Fit - Fat
Logical - Irrational
Dumb - Smart
Leader - Follower
Kind - Cranky
Labels help us define our experience and make sense of our world. There's nothing inherently wrong with a label. I mean, who would want to live in a world where their labels didn't differentiate salt and sugar?
Even with people, the label itself is not the problem. I am a white woman. My friend is a Hispanic woman. The distinction of our race and gender are not intrinsically good or bad.
Labels only become an issue when we let them lead us to think we know about a person because of the label, and we fail to look deeper and see the rich complexity that makes up every person. They're also problematic when we let them be a means of determining sameness or differentness, like me or not like me, in our "club" or on our "team" or not.
3 Things in Common
I have a friend who plays a little game called 3 Things in Common. The premise is that if we look, we can always find at least three things we have in common with another person. It's a great game for breaking barriers we may or may not realize we're placing between us and others. It's a great ice breaker when getting to know someone new. We can invite them to play with us by saying something like, "Hey, I'll bet we can find three things we have in common." If that's not your style, you can also play the game more covertly by engaging in conversation, listening for commonalities, and asking questions that might help us find common ground. Go ahead, give it a try.
A Social Experiment
Project eye2eye was conceived by a musician who was distressed by what he saw happening in our society. In his words, "The anger, the divisiveness, and the hatred had gotten to me more than I even realized. I just wanted to do something to make things better." The project was born.
"We advertised a filmed focus group and would pay the participants to simply have a conversation with someone of different beliefs on camera. They would each be labeled in plain view of their partner, and they would be given some conversation starters." You can find the video HERE. Please, please click through to watch it. It may very well be the most powerful four minutes of your day. The participants are pictured above.
From the project eye2eye website - "I believe in the good of humanity. I believe that we can be kind to each other and still have conversations. I imagined ways to prove that we can still get along. I imagined what would happen if people could get past the labels we give ourselves and understand that they were talking to another human being - another person who has had a life full of experiences, memories, and circumstances that made them who they are today.
"We are more than the labels that we give ourselves. Solutions start with communication."
I whole-heartedly agree.
Of course, we have things we believe about ourselves, and we have our experiences of people - and we have to make sense of things. But please, let's be very careful with the labels we use - for others and ourselves. Often the labels we use are subjective, inaccurate, and basically irrelevant, anyway.
More importantly, even when our labels may be accurate, as in the project eye2eye video, we are all so much more complex than any label. Every. One. Of. Us.
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