It seems like there are many people out there who want us to break each other down into little bite-sized pieces, disassemble one another, as if we were machines, into our separate entities. Of course I'm referring to sex, race, age, income, etc... While there is nothing wrong with identifying ourselves along these lines, in fact, we should be proud of every aspect of who we are, the issue lies in which identifiers we choose to prioritize over the others.
Depending on who you are, the terms that would commonly be used to identify me - white, male, Christian, Conservative, straight, gun owner, bachelor, Trump supporter, nurse, American, Italian, former military member, citizen, baker, cat owner, piano player, oldest sibling, child of divorced parents, international traveler, etc... will bring different preconceived notions about who I am. Some of the ideas are probably right (e.g. I'm a guy so I probably pee standing up). Some of them are probably wrong, but that's not what I'm going to discuss here. What you think of these labels is a topic way too broad for a blog. The point of this post, is that the order in which you prioritize which labels you apply to someone matters as much if not more than the meaning that you attribute to each label individually.
Continuing to use myself as an example, some people might might see: 1) Conservative, 2) white, 3) middle class, 4) male, 5) straight, 6) 38 year-old 7) Christian, 8) nurse, 9) single, in that order. What they would think about me as being male would over-rule what they would think of me as being a nurse. Political identity is the supreme identifier of the Liberal so everything that proceeds after your party affiliation is secondary to that. Race is second, followed by your class and so forth. This obviously portends that the order in which you prioritize what you see in someone else will have just as great an impact on your overall opinion of them as the actual feelings you have toward each individual label.
The previous list is clearly contrived and just a possible hierarchy of labels. Truthfully there are dozens and dozens of labels that we apply to people based on their appearance, the way they carry themselves, their address, and so on. A stereotypical unimpressed mother-in-law comes to mind here. Most of these opinions are deeply held convictions that are not easily mutable. This is the power behind the politics of the Democrat Party and the reason why my above list is constructed in that order. Many people have strong beliefs about race in particular. Ironically, the stronger the belief the more likely the person is to claim to be spearheading the eradication of racism when in fact they are like little Johnny Racism Seed's keeping the idea of the importance of race alive. The Democrats success is predicated upon pushing race to the tip top of everyone's label priority list.
We are working too hard trying to change each others' opinions about the labels we put on one another and the rewards are seldom worth the grief that we are causing ourselves. It's like we are working all day and night shucking oysters to find a tiny pearl that we can use to buy a little bit of food while we have a pile of oysters next to us. We can forget about the pearls because by focusing on the oysters alone, we will still find them. The oyster in this case, is rearranging the order in which we prioritize the labels we give one another. Using a different set of priorities, a different list of my labels might be: 1) Christian, 2) American, 3) friend, 4) son, 5) brother, 6) nurse, 7) musician, 8) writer, etc...
The next couple of years are going to be rough. We are surely going be dragged through the mud of identity politics whether we like it or not. What we can help, is choosing to see each other in a different light - not by changing what we might think of the labels we put on one another, necessarily - but simply by deciding that we are going to put different categories at the tops of our lists.
- A. M. Battaglia
