labels

I am reading an amazing novel called The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It is about Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's and how "the help", the African American maids are treated by the white women they work for. In the book, a white woman decides to write the stories of these maids. So she meets with a dozen maids and hears their stories. She then changes their names and writes their stories. The story is told from the perspective of the white woman, Skeeter, as well as two of the maids, Aibileen and Minny. There are, of course, some very troubling parts...and some very touching parts.

Skeeter, due to the choices she makes to stand up against her friends, is labeled and ostracized. She really hasn't changed, but the labels they give her have changed. Also, Aibileen and Minny are talking and Aibileen is explaining that really they are all people and that the labels between the help and their employers, and between the white trash and the society women and so on are just labels used to divide. It was put much more eloquently than that, but I can't find it to quote it.

Anyway, it has had me thinking about labels. Why do we label people and divide them into groups? As I read about the times before civil rights, it disgusts me the way that many people treated their fellow human beings. And I hope and think that we have made improvements in society. But I'm not foolish enough to believe that labeling and dividing people has gone away. We still separate ourselves into groups. I know that I am guilty at times of labeling people or groups, based on education level or race or economic status or religious beliefs. I hope that I don't allow these labels to affect the way I treat people, but they probably do. So why do we do this? Do we have an innate need to feel better than others? I know that our brain automatically sorts things into categories and groups in order to store and retrieve information more effectively, and this makes sense in most areas. But not as much with human beings when it seems that far too often the labels we assign are used to separate, cause harm, elevate one group over another. In my experience, we all do it at some level, and perhaps, being aware of it and making an effort to see beyond these labels or stereotypes or groupings can allow us to make changes in the way we interact with and treat others. Because it is easy to think unkindly or act unkindly to a group of people who you see as different, but once you get to know them personally, as individuals, it is harder to continue those unfair thoughts and actions. Maybe that is why I am able to have very different thoughts and opinions about illegal immigrants than many people...because I know many of them and have seen that most of them are good people and don't live up to some of the stereotypes you hear about them. I think we need to challenge ourselves, when we notice that we are labeling someone or stereotyping them, to go beyond that label and see what makes them like us, not what makes us different.

I am reminded of a short section from a book called Expecting Adam by Martha Beck. She wrote about going jogging one day and seeing what she thought was quartz. She was excited as she reached down to pick it up, thinking she had found this beautiful mineral,glistening in the sun. But when she picked it up, it was actually styrofoam and she dropped it disgusted. But then she began thinking about this... her reaction had totally changed when she found out what it was, not because the object had changed (it was always styrofoam, and it had still looked pretty), but because her label for the object had changed...one label was precious mineral, the other garbage. She began to think about how our labels for people changed how we saw them, and for the rest of the day she tried to see people without labels. She didn't last long, she began to cry beause the people around her were so beautiful. She writes, "This was enough to make me wonder if many of the things I reviled as ugly might not in fact be beautiful, if I might be robbing myself of beauty with my own cognitive prejudice." Certainly the people in Jackson, Mississippi were. Martha Beck also writes, "If we saw people as they really are, the beauty would overwhelm us. (pages 307-308)"

At the end of The Help, Stockett tells a little about her maid growing up and what led her to writing the book. She says that there is one line that she prizes in the book, and I think she puts what I am trying to say so succinctly, that I'd like to share it as well:

"Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought."

Anyway, I certainly don't have all the answers. And I know I'm guilty of labeling too. But I guess we have to be careful to examine the labels and things we believe. We hear at church to love our neighbors, to not use terms like "non-member" because it separates, to forgive, to love the sinner but not the sin. And I do believe that many, most, of us are trying. But I know there are times that I can do better. Interestingly, in The Help, when Skeeter's books is published, several of the women in town read the book and don't recognize themselves in the book. They don't see themselves as being haughty and cruel to their help. Others do recognize themselves. For good or ill, I would hope that I would have the self-knowledge to recognize myself and see where I feel short and needed to change. I would hope that I would have been like Skeeter and overcome my own prejudices and labels, so that I could do what I believed in and not listened to the opinions of others. I hope that I can work harder to do that in my every day life as I interact with parents of my students, neighbors, coworkers and others that often live different lives and come from different backgrounds than I do.