I Am Not A Label
Poetry Prompt — Day 1
why can’t you let me breathe?
why do I need to be placed inside a box?
I just want to be me,
free of all these labels
that dictate who I should be.
Social labeling is a persuasion technique that consists of providing a person with a statement about his or her personality or values (i.e., the social label) in an attempt to provoke behavior that is consistent with the label.
I view social labels as a construct that separates us from our own humanity. Social labels cause us to judge and make assumptions about each other, and they deprive us of our freedom to be who we are. They place us into these boxes filled with all these predetermined beliefs, ideas, and stereotypes.
I have been guilty of judging others based on certain social labels and that is something that I would love to let go and bury forever. For instance, I have a family member who would like to become a rapper, and immediately I judged his choice based on my programmed assumptions of rappers.
Instead, I should have embraced him for expressing his creativity, and support him because he is brave enough to follow his dreams. Him writing rap songs is no different from me writing poetry. We are both expressing…
