LABELS MATTER BECAUSE I SAID SO.

While I did choose a purposefully eye-catching title ... it is 100% truthful. To me labels do matter, therefore in order to converse with me, you have to at least consider my perspective and my point of you. I'm not saying you must 100% obey the label law and focus on categorizing every word someone speaks into mental filing systems. That would be ludicrous! I'm just saying, if someone tells you something personal to them, you shouldn't argue with and explain your side. The best thing you should accept it as their truth. And that's the real reason why I took so long to respond to the topic of labels. I felt like I was fighting a battle of me versus, well most other people. I know a lot of people are still thinking it's just labels and to get over it But it means a lot more to me than it may to some of you. Your perspectives are as valid as my perspectives.

I think it's fair to say that most of us are nudist. To build on that, most of us are at home nudists who are comfortable in your own skin and our own home. Imagine you're just living your life as nude as can be, as happy as a clam. And then you get a visitor trying to sell you a vacuum, and the visitor asks why are you nude? And your response, simply, we're nudists. Now, your neighbor overhears you and interjects, why do you need to tell people you are a nudist? and adds, I enjoy wearing my clothes, but you don't see me telling others that I am a textilist ? or a clothist? so you shouldn't feel the need to tell people you don't wear clothes...

Hopefully you all are able to see how ridiculous that scenario would be. And if you don't think that is bizarre, do you think it's bizarre if I go to your house and tell you how to live your life? And for those able to see the insanity, imagine you're in my shoes and you feel so alone because people are telling you to change your mind about something that causes no harm one way or another. Then you'll think, no one try to change my mind. Well, no one's intent was to change my mind, I agree, but the many words that came across, the many voices that came across were telling me the consensus for what works. But the more voices that just want to 'help' and share their perspectives can actually overshadow my one comment that is on the other spectrum of work is normal. The widely accepted method is to not let words to find you or put you in a box as a label. Trust me, labels do not defined me. Time! and place! But labels actually define things that aren't necessarily there. Let's re-label labels to be placeholders.

In a previous forum, someone described how Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the best fit for the SCOTUS, yet her sex and "race" tainted her hard work to fill the vacancy. But that's the key! We identified that there was a certain group of people not represented in the SCOTUS. While some may think that it tainted her journey, I argue that it actually was the missing link that we needed to have a fair judiciary branch. The placeholder of black women was one that wasn't found on the Supreme Court. Therefore we had to find someone to fulfill that placeholder. So to say the very thing that put her on the map, was actually was her downfall is a total farce. In this particular instance, we needed a label in order to identify what we had, what we want, and ultimately what we need to get us there.

It's easy to say to not worry about such minuscule things such as labels when your personal labels are so abundant that it's irrefutably your truth. But when you don't see much of your own label, you don't believe in yourself as much. The less you start to believe in yourself, the more you start to lose yourself. Especially when everyone is telling you to think this way or that way. And when I lose sight of who I am overall? I become a lost little boy, sleeping less than 10 hours a week total, having an existential crisis and avoiding other people as to save myself from conflict.

I get that its hard for others to understand another's want and need for something different. The saying agree to disagree fits perfectly here. At the end of the day, the take home to tell our children is, difference exist. But those differences don't make us better or worse than someone else. We just are different. To say we don't see differences means we assume everyone is playing with the same deck of cards, same conditions and positions and same starting point as our peers. But we do not and that's okay. Don't try to wash away someone else's story because it has variances from yours. There is a place for both! In my world, there is a place for labels to sit. Not everything has a label, and my need for labels vary from day to day. I don't bring up these labels upon first meeting someone, but only if I find value in doing so. Labels matter for me because for so many other people, labels do not matter at all. Thanks for reading.

*Why was race used? Did you mean ethnicity?

best, J

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