Labels As Weapons of Mass and Self-Destruction

Label: (1) A piece of paper attached to an object giving information about it. (2) A classifying name, given to a person or thing, especially inaccurately.  (Oxford Concise Dictionary, 10th Edition)

People use labels on others and on themselves every day.   Should we embrace labels or reject them?  That depends on what the labels are, who is using the labels, why they are using them and what are their effects?  Although the definition seems clear, labelling is a more complicated matter.  Labels can be positive or negative.  Labels used negatively can result in mass- and self-destruction.

Many words can be used as positive and negative labels.  Take the word "woman", for example.  As a label, this word accurately describes an adult, female human being.  That is all the word means.  It doesn't say much more about the woman. 

But to some people, that word "woman" means the human being bearing that label is less intelligent, weak or in some other way inferior and not worthy of the same respect and rights as a man.  In fact, many other labels are added to that individual, just for being "woman."  In a world dominated by patriarchal norms, many of those other labels have a negative connotation when applied to women.  Words such as "bossy" and "aggressive" are thrown at a woman if she dares to assert herself.  The result is that women around the world struggle for equality in one way or other.  The extent of a woman's struggle depends on where she lives.  But this is a classic example of how labels are used as weapons of mass destruction. 

The same can be said of labels that identify characteristics like ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, educational level and abilities.  Entire groups or categories of people are denigrated, when a negative meaning is attached to the label that identifies them.

But this type of labelling becomes doubly detrimental when the negative labels are internalised.  One example is the use of the word "ugly" to describe non-European features.  Because of a history of European colonisation, peoples of various ethnicities across the globe, have been made to believe that their cultures and their physical features are inferior to those of the Europeans.  People with dark skin are labelled ugly, even by dark skinned people themselves. 

Today, fair skin is held up as one of the most desirable standards of beauty.  As a result, millions of people in Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean practise skin bleaching.  We can learn more about this from the many documentaries about skin bleaching found on YouTube.  No matter how dangerous the practice, many people employ extreme measures at great expense to lighten their skins.  Some of them impoverish themselves to acquire the bleaching products.  With these products, they damage their skins and their overall health.  Through these kinds of self-destructive practices, people try to erase characteristics of themselves.  All this is to escape the label of "ugly" which in this case means, "not fair-skinned."   This is one of the ways internalised labels become weapons of self-destruction.

Negative labelling is very bad.  Whether it is imposed on us or internalised, it is destructive.  How will we ever stop this from happening?  This is the question that had consumed me on yet another sleepless night.  But I don't know how to change things.  Do you know?

Dawn Marie Roper
"Justice, Truth be Ours Forever"