There is a Vonage commercial that has a tag line "walls separate people". As I've gotten older I can't help but see that the primary thing separating us are the labels we paste on one another, or have pasted on us. We are "black" or "Jewish", or "lesbian", or what have you. All of these labels are reasons to exclude people because they are "different", somehow "other" than we.
Black and White
Of all the stupid things we call one another, these have to be at the top of the list. I have a ream of paper nearby, and can unequivocally state that my skin is not at all white. I am, at best, sort of beige. I have never met a person with white skin. Not even albinos are white - their skin is translucent and the underlying blood vessels make them a faint pink. I have also never, ever, seen a human with black skin. I have seen chocolate, walnut, even 'burnt umber', but never actually black. Very dark, perhaps, but never black. I can't pretend to have met everyone on the planet, but if there's an exception somewhere it wouldn't change the fact that humans are basically all brown. We come in different shades, it's true, and there are some other highlights mixed in from time to time, but we're really all the same color.
A little history might be in order. The traders who roamed Africa gathering slaves to feed the southern cotton industry, often with the connivance of greedy tribal elders, felt that the men and women they captured were little more than animals. They were bolstered by erudite writings by religious leaders and scientists that 'proved' that Negroes were different, lesser beings. All hogwash, of course, but it provided the background of legitimacy for the enslavement of one human by another. Slavery had existed before, of course, but normally in the context of one nation defeating another. But this time the pretext wasn't punishment for a defeated people but simply the greedy need to unpaid labor. In the '50s and '60s, Dr. King and those inspired by him wanted to be integrated. His most famous plea was to be judged "not by the color of their skins but by the content of their characters." But others wanted a different outcome, and spurred by King's assassination, raised the cry of "black power". These activists pushed (stupidly, I believe) to be treated separately, thereby giving credence to all the bigot's claims that Negroes were not like the rest of us. So today we speak of the 'races', referring to the 'black race', and the 'white' race. Folks, let me assure you: there is only one race of people walking around on this planet - the 'human race' - only the human species.
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.
We categorize ourselves and others we meet by the extremely picky differences in the way we have chosen to worship the multitude of deities humanity imagines guide our lives. Now, I have written elsewhere that I believe that all of man's religions are bunkum, but that does not change the fact that some people believe passionately in every one of them. The issue is that they do believe so passionately that they are willing to fight, even kill one another, over the most minute differences in liturgical protocol. Worship an effigy; forbid effigies, ordain women; forbid women from participation; baptize and infant or an adult, and so on and so on, ad infinitum! Each denomination preaches tolerance and practices intolerance, claiming that each is the only path to salvation. Logically, either they are all true, and practitioners get rewarded in the next world in accordance with their particular belief system, or they are all false, and there is no afterlife. No other outcomes are possible in logic, and I vote for the second. That being said, if we remove the labels, we are left once again with just people. Hopefully people trying to act in a loving and tolerant manner, but just people none the less. Instead of saying, thou art a Jew (or Muslim, or Lutheran, or whatever) and I must strive with thee because we are different, should we not say instead that thou art a person, and I must give you respect and stand ready to offer you aid if needed? Again, remove the label and remove another reason to see differences where none really exist. And if you say to me, "I do not like how he worships his god", I would say to you that it is
none of your business how he worships. And if he attempts to press his ways on you, say to him that his ways are his, and yours are yours, and you each have an equal right to think as you wish. Then offer him a drink of his choice, because it is harder to be angry with someone when sharing some hospitality (even if it's just coffee).
LGBT
This class of labels is the most insidious, and at the same time the most ridiculous things we can say about one another. How, and with who, we chose to live our lives, is the most personal decision we can make. In fact, there is a larger issue here that transcends sexual preferences. The real issue is how we define roles for one another on the basis of gender. As I noted in another post, technology has removed the requirement to have opposite genders in order to create children. Now I know that most human society is not ready for the complete erasure of gender-based roles, but it is high time we made some moves in the right direction. At the very least, we can stop treating men and women as if they were different mentally and (in most cases) physically. There are some minor differences in our physiology created by millions of years of heterosexual activities and women are slightly smaller, on average, but there are absolutely no other limitations on performance. Women can, and do, hod bricks and fire AK47s and many other tasks thought physical in nature. In some endevours women still face resistance from insecure males, in others the integration has gone more smoothly, but until gender ceases to be defining attribute of ANY job we are not done.
Now what has gender equality to do with acceptance of persons whose sexual identification differs from what we call "normal"? Just this: if you approach someone without any preconceptions you'll find it easier to view that person's qualifications as an employee rather than their gender if you are hiring. And of course, if you are leaving gender out of the equation, you cannot be concerned with sexual preference, which is based on gender. Of course in social settings, when someone introduces you to his or her partner, and that person is the same gender, you will know that he or she is a homosexual. What I say to you is that homosexuality
makes no difference to their other human attributes. I say again, whomever a person chooses to be committed to is
none of your business. Any difficulty you feel in meeting a same-sex couple is coming entirely from your own insecurities and prejiduces. Celebrate the committment of a couple, and keep your difficulties to yourself, recognizing that they are entirely your problem.
One personal point. I want the term 'gay' back. As in " . . don we now our gay apparel . . ." I'm not sure how or why male homosexuals coopted this term; maybe they were jealous of the ladies getting the term lesbian (from the Greek legend of the isle of Lesbos), but no matter. If we strip away all the labels and stop worrying about who someone is screwing, we'll all be better off and healthier as a society. Finally, 'bisexual' refers to someone who enjoys sex with both genders and 'transgender' refers to someone who more or less temporarily takes on the attributes of the opposite gender in sexual situations. In my opinion, nobody needs to know these things except current and prospective sexual partners.
If asked to participate in a sexual situation you are uncomfortable with, simply decline. Do not denigrate or denounce.
Society operates so much more smoothly if we treat one another with respect and compassion. Looking past labels allows us to see one another as fellow humans, each deserving of the best of which we are capable. Labels define and limit us. Lose them and we will be much more free.
