Why do people ask people not to "label" them?

Question

when in most cases they're obviously dressing and acting in a way that directly centers around a certain group of people. I for one could careless what people said about me because after all is said and done my opinion of myself is the only one that counts. I know I dress "weird" sometimes and people have attempted to pigeon hole me many times but have always come up short in trying to articulate a definition. The reason in which I would be concerned with someone mislabeling me would be if they were talking about my views incorrectly. My opinions are finite and when someone misrepresents my opinions they are misrepresenting the bulk of who I am.

I wasn't aiming anywhere near racism ,just social groups which if you were to throw race into the matter would further complicate the details. One is not defined by their race unless they choose to be defined by that race. The same goes for social groups.

Answer 1

ya got dat right sister,
I wear my hair long and choose to sport a go-tee style beard,
but I wear good clean looking clothes,
still these uppity class morons label me as a hippy,
this really pisses me off becouse they don't know who I am,
I really don't understand the so called civilized class of goody two shoe'd idiots . in there posh cars and houses,
theres simply to many weiners with to much money out there

Answer 2

The way you dress, your manners, and how you carry yourself communicates a message to other people. If others are categorizing and labeling you wrong, then its a clue you should take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror, and analyze what message are you consciously and subconsciously telling other people by the way you dress. If you like the way you dress and the way you carry yourself, then perhaps society is vindictive, and are trying to impose their values and wishes on you, which you just happen to disagree. If you like what you see in the mirror, then you'll have to accept the consequences of your decision. Perhaps its not you, that has a problem; perhaps its society in general, that has a problem. Perhaps society is insane, and you and a very few select friends of yours, are the only sane persons in this country.

Answer 3

Because "labeling" or stereotyping can have very real negative consequences.

Here's why--I'll take the example of African-Americans as an example. For many years (centuries,in fact) they were stgmatized as being "stupid," "lazy," etc. Racists labeled them that way deliberatel, to justify (excuse) discrimination.

Now--keep in mind tha , sorry to say, racists are still with us. And they consistantly attempt to do the same thing--label blacks as inferior. One of the ways they do this is by labeling--stereotyping--anything that is part of African-American culture.

(Bear with me--I'm going somewhere with this) If--as is still sometimes the case, such people succeed in creating a stereotype tha tother people accept without fully thinking this through--the racist has succeeded in his goal-because then people (who aren't racist) will view anyone who displays the stereotyped behavior, dress, etc. (like baggy pants) as being crude, stupid, or whatever.

Racists tod ay, when they succeed, usually do it by such means--they no longer have recourse to lynching and Jim Crowlaws.

The point o favoiding labeling is to avoid inadvertantly "buying into" the negative stereotypes. Here's another stereotype that illustrates the point: my roomate (female) ha a tatoo on her arm. Some people will label her because of that--and in fact, in some contexts it would keep her from being hired by some employers because of the stigma many people still attach to women with tattoos. In fact, she's a highly qualified sociologist with a number of well-received papers to her credit, even though she doens't even have her doctorate yet.

So--when people ask you to avoid labels--its not because they don't want to be known as part of a particuar group. What they are actually asking, by implication, is to be careful to avoid inadvertantly perpetuating or spreading negative stereotypes about them based on superficial characteristics. Because it can be very harmful.

Answer 4

More often than not they're trying to duck the consequences that they are fully aware ALWAYS come with whatever particular behavior is getting them labeled.