Labels - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

mac Daddy · 11-30-2003, 08:45 PM

Should people be labeled? Labels such as Irish-American, Hispanic, African-American. I had a college professor who as to most was a black person. She was from Jamaica. Once when filling out a questionaire on race, the listings were caucasion, African-American, Hispanic, or Asian. The white guy next to her was from South Africa. To all appearances he was white and she African-American. So quite the opposite. Now that being told. What is the affect of labels to perpetuate racism and stereotypes?

wilbjammin · 11-30-2003, 10:50 PM

These kinds of census labels aren't keeping in touch with the times... the largest growing population in these groups are those who are parts of several of these groups, and they don't even count. Of course, these numbers have a purpose - money allocation. It is hard when you see the good and bad with census numbers, but the best thing one can do is to remember that while people do tend to claim ownership of their race/ethnicity as being integral to they are (you can't ignore it) that each person is still a person. Labels tend to be negative, I think, just because people tend to make generalizations from them and those generalizations tend to become adopted even by those within the group, which is a huge danger. It is a complicated issue, because we also see these trends and they have stats to uphold them, not talking about them pretends they don't exist. Perhaps it is a necessary evil. I really don't know.

ellipsys · 12-01-2003, 01:32 PM

the race-label questions for colleges, workplaces, etc. are used primarily to follow equal-opportunity standards set up in order to level out populations so that no single race holds the vast majority. the stupid part is that the same people who fought for these laws concerning race and equality are usually the ones who get all butt-hurt and whiny because they dont want to be labelled and still expect special treatment because of their race. it all comes down to our culture's inherent laziness. if someone finds out they can reap what they didnt sow, they'll do whatever they can to milk it.

John Henry · 12-01-2003, 01:38 PM

Labels are fundamental to language, communication and human understanding of the world. Every word is a label. The important thing with labelling people is not to get confused about the meaning or relative importance of the labels. So I'm a honky, Limey, Jock, Polak. Just means I'm pink and various people responsible for my existence came from England Scotland and Poland. Racism is when you assume that any of those facts tells you anything about my character.

Everything you think about involves labelling, if you stop labelling people and things then you will.. erm... probably become a zen master.

lurkette · 12-01-2003, 03:00 PM

I think John Henry has a point - it's an essential function of human cognition to classify things. The mistake we make is in assuming that those classifications are somehow natural, inherent in the things that are labelled. We've made particular distinctions - race being one of them - that are kind of arbitrary. We could have classified all of humanity into tall and short, hairy and hairless, able to sing and not able to sing, but instead we chose white and not white, with all of the various ethnic and racial subclassifications that entails. There's so much information to process - not just in the "digital age" but just in basic survival - what's going on in your environment, is that thing dangerous or not? - that we have learned to make mental "shortcuts" to speed up the processing of information. We classify things, and then we don't have to think about that thing any more - instead of having to deal with objects (or people) on an individual basis, we learn the classifications and then the next time we encounter one of those, we go "I know this, this is X, and it's like 'this'". And we don't have to spend time assessing it.

While this tendency has some survival value, it also means you necessarily get an incomplete picture of the world because objects and people are never identical. Even if they share certain features, they still probably have more NOT in common. It's fine if all you have to know is "kills me" or "doesn't kill me" or "edible" or "not edible" but when you get into the nuances of living in society, it can be a real handicap for developing just and enlightened relations.

11-30-2003, 08:45 PM	#1 (permalink)
mac Daddy Upright Location: Cali	Labels Should people be labeled? Labels such as Irish-American, Hispanic, African-American. I had a college professor who as to most was a black person. She was from Jamaica. Once when filling out a questionaire on race, the listings were caucasion, African-American, Hispanic, or Asian. The white guy next to her was from South Africa. To all appearances he was white and she African-American. So quite the opposite. Now that being told. What is the affect of labels to perpetuate racism and stereotypes?

11-30-2003, 10:50 PM	#2 (permalink)
wilbjammin * * *	These kinds of census labels aren't keeping in touch with the times... the largest growing population in these groups are those who are parts of several of these groups, and they don't even count. Of course, these numbers have a purpose - money allocation. It is hard when you see the good and bad with census numbers, but the best thing one can do is to remember that while people do tend to claim ownership of their race/ethnicity as being integral to they are (you can't ignore it) that each person is still a person. Labels tend to be negative, I think, just because people tend to make generalizations from them and those generalizations tend to become adopted even by those within the group, which is a huge danger. It is a complicated issue, because we also see these trends and they have stats to uphold them, not talking about them pretends they don't exist. Perhaps it is a necessary evil. I really don't know. __________________ Innominate.

12-01-2003, 01:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
John Henry Addict Location: Grey Britain	Labels are fundamental to language, communication and human understanding of the world. Every word is a label. The important thing with labelling people is not to get confused about the meaning or relative importance of the labels. So I'm a honky, Limey, Jock, Polak. Just means I'm pink and various people responsible for my existence came from England Scotland and Poland. Racism is when you assume that any of those facts tells you anything about my character. Everything you think about involves labelling, if you stop labelling people and things then you will.. erm... probably become a zen master. __________________ "No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit." Last edited by John Henry; 12-01-2003 at 03:11 PM..

12-01-2003, 03:00 PM	#5 (permalink)
lurkette My future is coming on Moderator Emeritus Location: east of the sun and west of the moon	I think John Henry has a point - it's an essential function of human cognition to classify things. The mistake we make is in assuming that those classifications are somehow natural, inherent in the things that are labelled. We've made particular distinctions - race being one of them - that are kind of arbitrary. We could have classified all of humanity into tall and short, hairy and hairless, able to sing and not able to sing, but instead we chose white and not white, with all of the various ethnic and racial subclassifications that entails. There's so much information to process - not just in the "digital age" but just in basic survival - what's going on in your environment, is that thing dangerous or not? - that we have learned to make mental "shortcuts" to speed up the processing of information. We classify things, and then we don't have to think about that thing any more - instead of having to deal with objects (or people) on an individual basis, we learn the classifications and then the next time we encounter one of those, we go "I know this, this is X, and it's like 'this'". And we don't have to spend time assessing it. While this tendency has some survival value, it also means you necessarily get an incomplete picture of the world because objects and people are never identical. Even if they share certain features, they still probably have more NOT in common. It's fine if all you have to know is "kills me" or "doesn't kill me" or "edible" or "not edible" but when you get into the nuances of living in society, it can be a real handicap for developing just and enlightened relations. __________________ "If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

12-01-2003, 01:32 PM	#3 (permalink)
ellipsys Upright	the race-label questions for colleges, workplaces, etc. are used primarily to follow equal-opportunity standards set up in order to level out populations so that no single race holds the vast majority. the stupid part is that the same people who fought for these laws concerning race and equality are usually the ones who get all butt-hurt and whiny because they dont want to be labelled and still expect special treatment because of their race. it all comes down to our culture's inherent laziness. if someone finds out they can reap what they didnt sow, they'll do whatever they can to milk it.