"How can people who have been labeled throughout their childhood break out of that label without moving or going to college? Do labels become so ingrained that people cannot move past them sometimes?"
In my class when I was younger, there was a kid who threw really awful tantrums. Sometimes he would throw books and scream, but as he grew up, his temper mellowed and today, he's a really nice young man. But I still remember this person as "the boy who threw tantrums." I think that we break out when we go into an unfamiliar area. From kindergarten to my senior year in high school, I attended the same school district with the same people who knew things about my past. My father owned a bait shop so I was often labeled "the worm girl." I never really minded it, but when I came to MCLA, no one except the people I've told know that my father used to sell bait, so I don't have that label attached to me. People here don't really know about anything except what I tell them, which leaves them to focus on the me that is here and the me that I want to portray. We have a clean slate with people who we don't know, especially when there's no outside influence from people we do know.
I think that people do have trouble moving on from certain labels, but I think that is mainly due to the personality or the appearance of the labeled person. If a person is labeled a liar, and goes do a different area and doesn't want to be thought of such but still lies anyway, then of course they're going to be labeled a liar. And if someone has a disfiguring scar on their face and goes to a new school, they're probably going to be labeled as the guy with the scar. But as Kim said, labels provide easy recall, and more people would probably know who the guy with the scar is rather than Tim.
Question: Some people adamantly reject labels but label others anyways. Do they actually dislike labels or do you think that they mean something else?
No comments:
Post a Comment