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Not a label-
Chatterbox: Down to Earth
Not a label-
Not a label-
I really hope I'm not spamming this place with threads and comments... I guess I apologize too much though.
Anyway, I just wanted to share something that I felt was important. I've noticed this happening to other people and perhapse myself, actually. I probably seem like I'm stating the obvious, but just the fact that this still needs to be brought to light means that it isn't completely obvious yet. It's about having things assumed about you, by another person, without them even getting to know you.
It's about your physical charactaristics determining, in the eyes of other people, what you are, and what you should be. And I think I've had just enough of sitting around passivley dissmissing these labels that are slapped on us the moment we wake up every day.
Even if you think this doesn't relate to you, I bet it does. I bet absolutely everything about us is labeled in some way, that even only subtly changes peoples perceptions of us. So I composed this:
Just because I'm small doesn't mean I'm meek
Just because I'm girlish doesn't mean I'm weak.
My eyes may be narrow, narrower than yours
But that shouldn't have to close any doors.
I am still a child, so I must be naive
And my heritage somehow determines my path?
How many of these things do people actually beleive?
I'm meant for art and writing, not math.
I'm not a label.
Anyway, even if CB doesn't do hashtags, I'll make one to state my message: #NotALabel
submitted by Pooki P, age -30, #NotALabel
(June 15, 2018 - 10:55 am)
(June 15, 2018 - 10:55 am)
I completely understand about the no labels thing, and I support it.
As far as cliché “jock” or “nerd” stereotypes at school, I have encountered it but am not currently. I go to an extremely accelerated school that is widely multiracial and has people from many different ethinicities(example, my class was over fifty percent non-Caucasian), so the racial labels are usually kept to a minimum. Comments will still be made jokingly that “all Asians are smart” or that “you should go ask them because they’re Asian”. It doesn’t really annoy me, but I understand that it is not okay or right. At my school the people are all so different and diverse that you can’t really stereotype people as jocks or nerds(we’re all nerds) because none of them really play the same sport and if they do they all hang out with different groups of people. For example, I’d classify my friend group as unpopular, nerdy dweebs, but two of my friends are both extremely sporty.
At my old school, however, it was completely different. You were defined by whether or not you played sports, and all of the really popular kids played them. To say “jock” was the equivalent of saying “popular”, and to say “nerd” was the same as saying “unpopular person that people are nice to so they can get answers from them”. It sucked because while I was athletic, my athleticism didn’t really fall under one category, so I ended up hovering in the middle where people would pretend to be nice but honestly didn’t care.
(June 20, 2018 - 6:21 am)
Hm.
If we really want to make a change, maybe we shouldn't just stop at one thread. Who's with me?
(June 20, 2018 - 10:29 am)
Most of the people in our school are nice. However, outside school, I sometimes get defined as "a really smart kid" because I go to a gifted school program. Honestly, I don't think our class is any different than a normal class, because our teacher just shows us more advanced things.
Being Asian American though, I don't get asked random questions about my ethnicity, because I honestly do not look Asian, and also I'm usually just talking my head off.
I've seen my parents actually not allow me to play with some kids in our neighborhood before when I was younger because they were a grade lower than me (but the same age), and because they played outside a lot. My dad referred to them as, "slightly wild", which really bugs me, but honestly, I don't really see them anywhere anymore.
My parents are actually really nice, they just really push me really hard since my mother went to an Ivy League, and they want me to be a successful CEO or something.
(June 20, 2018 - 2:13 pm)
Haha, I just had to reply to your post RP! Cause those "Slightly wild" Kids out playing was most likely what my old neighborhood friends and I were like. We used to ding-dong ditch people (Definitely not reccomending it), hold scateboarding and bike races down the street, accidently hit cars with our mad soccer skills (JK, no mad soccer skills here) and we were most likely the loudest kids on the block. *Sighs* those were the days. . . But ya know, we were all nice kids and respected each other (Well, as much as a ten - eleven year old can respect one another lol) So.. yeah.
*Flys off in Mark 49 armour with some epic Latino music in the backround*
(June 20, 2018 - 3:34 pm)
That sounds (insert positive adjective).
(June 29, 2018 - 3:54 pm)
No way! Small people are far more often the fiery ones. And you sound perfectly ablaze.
I never really thought about labels. Either they fit me or they aren't given, mostly the latter. The only one I can think of is "weird cat girl". It's... used in different ways.
(June 29, 2018 - 3:57 pm)