I am

Imagine if we all had tags attached to ourselves that would sum us up in one phrase. What would yours say? Would it say engineer? Maybe “I am a Southerner?” Christian? Mestizo? Liberal? “I am Jewish?” Or how about homosexual? Frat boy? There are a million possibilities. The irony is that you are limited to one.

Unfortunately, this is reality, even here at Duke. Want proof? Glance through the editorial section of this past month’s Chronicles. There are countless columns and letters about the division between political parties, about “my people” and “their people,” about “I am this” and “I am that.” You enter in keywords, like “Arab” or “liberal,” in the search box, and you receive pages of return hits. There are your tags; there are your labels.

We’re so focused on these identities it’s as if we believe we can unlock all the mysteries of a person with one word. We forget that people are not one-dimensional, that they are so complicated we cannot begin to sum them up. My boss told me how he was listening to a radio show and found it fascinating that the hosts could not fathom voters being multi-dimensional. An interviewee on the show voted for President George W. Bush, but this person was homosexual. When the radio show asked the man why he voted for Bush when Mr. President supports anti-gay marriage laws, the interviewee said that his beliefs ran more with the Republican party’s platform. Just like these radio show hosts, we sometimes think of each other as being one-dimensional in his or her views.

Sadly, I am guilty of this, as well.

Once, when I was editing a friend’s profile for her on thefacebook.com, I picked her political views as being conservative. I thought she would be a Republican supporter because she was Christian. When Election Day rolled around, she voted. For Kerry.

Or there is a guy in my English class who is a talented writer; but when I realized he was a football player, I was surprised. Why was I surprised? Can a jock not have the skill to wield a pen as the next individual?

Yet, we choose to identify ourselves with certain groups. Perhaps it’s to feel like we belong, to be reaffirmed in our beliefs or to instill a sense of conviction in ourselves. Whatever the reasons are, we all do it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, the sense of community or the connection with culture is important to all of us. But don’t let it be all you’re about and don’t let others think that either. Yeah, maybe you are a Southerner. Yeah, you’re a chemistry major. Yeah, you’re a Buddhist. But you are so much more. Aren’t you?

We need to practice caution in these forms of identification. There are too many connotations and prejudices, too many stigmas, with labels concerned with regional, racial, religious, political, educational and sexual differences. These drawn lines only divide us, sometimes create animosity among us. We can’t assume with people, can’t underestimate or overestimate them. They have a way of surprising us. By condensing other people or even ourselves into one form of identification, we limit our growth as people. If someone says to you, “People like you don’t participate in such-and-such event. Don’t bother,” prove them wrong. Or if you say that of yourself, don’t listen.

Jina Jang is a Trinity sophomore.