ME...
- NAZORA
- Feb 6, 2021
- 2 min read
ME… a pronoun used by a speaker to refer to themselves. You… a pronoun used to refer to the person or people the speaker is addressing. So then, #Whoareyou? If you don’t know, the world’s systems, your culture, your colleagues, your friends and even ones own parents will take on the role and define you.
At birth you are addressed as baby…..your name….at death it is …your name….. in between you could be anything in the list below.
White & Black Caribbean/ White & Black African/ White and Asian
Mixed %/ Mixed White Asian/ % White/ Half British/ Non-White/ Non-Black
Black African/ Black South African/ Black Zimbabwean
Black British/ Black Russian/ Black American/ Black German
British Muslim/ Black Scottish/ Black Polish/ Black Irish/ Black
Ethnic Minority/ Ethnic/ BAME/ BME
Plus Size/ Black workers/ Black Other
Slaves and ******* all the other indecent rude labels etc
No one has the right to choose a socially constructed label termed ‘race’ and place it on another, only for that individual to discover their ‘race’ as they begin to live out their lives. Only to become aware - having knowledge of a situation or cognisant - of what others think of them or what the #culture calls them.
How is it that you are known simply as a human being with a name in one country and then choose to take on a ‘hue identity’ in another country, just because someone else defines you that way. Why give so much power to another to define who you are especially when you know the label is a false.
How we raise the next generation is critical in defining identity, be that as a majority, a minority or a unique individual - one of a kind in the human race, because even monozygotic twins have their own identity.
As parents and mentors of the next generations we need to be aware the world awaits them with a very long list of systematic labels. We can either choose to impose those labels on them or listen to their voices and help them establish who they really are so they can run the race they were created to run instead of being a ‘race’.
Even if that means ‘changing’ not redefining the historical labels because we should not forget why they had to exist in the first place, like the great novelist #Toni Morrison demonstrated in #Beloved "Definitions belong to the definer not the defined". A thousand years old lie is still a lie and with it comes the burdens of the lie….to be continued
Photo: m.abdelgaffar
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