Think Beyond the Label

Most of the labels people use for each other can be demeaning, but they’re just in fun, right? If you think about it, it’s not always a laughing matter.

“That’s so lame!”

“What a freak.”

“He is so dumb.”

“She is such a cow.”

Do you recognize any of these statements? Have you ever heard them directed at you? Have you ever spoken any of them or similar phrases? Are you quick to label others?

Liable to label

Labeling, or using a word or phrase to identify someone, has been around a long time. In fact, labels such as these have become so much a part of the modern vernacular, we may have even begun to filter them out.

But if you take the time to sit at a busy watering hole and listen (politely!) to the conversations around you, you might be surprised at how often labels are used and how easy it is for us to begin implementing them in our own communications as a result.

Have most people ever really stopped to think, for example, that someone who is “lame” literally means he or she can’t walk? Or someone who is “dumb” literally means someone who can’t speak? These words aren’t bad of and by themselves, of course, and neither are the conditions they represent, but using the terms in a denigrating fashion is inappropriate—and unloving.

Biblical directives on speech

Consider the apostle Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29, New International Version).

And there are many more scriptures that discuss controlling our speech. For more, read Ephesians 4:31-32; Colossians 3:8; James 4:11; James 3; and many parts of the book of Proverbs. And see the blog post “A Word to the Wise.”

With such directives in mind, there simply is no opportunity for assigning hurtful labels to others.

Practically speaking

Here are a few thoughts to consider where labels are concerned:

• There is no way one word or one phrase can fully encompass someone’s entire being, personality or character.

There are certain psychology exercises that ask us to describe ourselves in one or two words, or we might be asked a similar question during an interview. It’s fine to answer these with a few descriptors of your personality. But you know that one or two words will never describe you completely.

So if one or two good words could never even describe you completely, how could one or two negative words describe another individual entirely?

• We probably don’t know someone well enough to assign one word or phrase to describe him or her.

It can be easy to unfeelingly label someone with a careless word if we don’t know the individual very well. But if we take the time to get to know him or her, we will likely find that a label we had previously assigned is entirely inaccurate.

• Our understanding or perspective of an individual or situation may be completely in error.

It’s important to understand that there’s always more than one side to the story. She may seem like a snob to you, for example, but from her perspective, she’s just painfully shy and doesn’t know what to say. Or he may seem like he has a low IQ, but in reality he struggles with a social disorder.

• Labels can reinforce behavior instead of encourage healing.

Ever hear the phrase, “If you hear something often enough, you begin to believe it”? This applies even to the labels we might assign others.

Being referred to regularly as lazy, for example, may make someone feel like there’s no point in exerting himself or herself more, since that label always seems to stick. Likewise, labeling someone as depressed might worsen an individual’s symptoms and reinforce the downward spiral of feeling isolated and misunderstood.

• Only God can know the heart of an individual, which is why He alone is qualified to give us a new label (Revelation 2:17).

Our incredible God knows us better than we know ourselves, as the saying goes. Only He has the ability to sum us up in one name.

Lose the label

A recent ad campaign for disability employment takes a comedic approach to the concept of labeling. As a woman in a wheelchair makes the rounds of her office, she jokingly points out her coworkers’ deficiencies: “fashion impaired,” “copy incompetent” and an individual suffering from “mouth-control syndrome.” Her label? “Coffee-making impaired.”

It’s an attempt at a humorous way of bringing our attention to a real problem: Labels need to go. Like the group responsible for the above campaign, I encourage you to “think beyond the label.”

Debbie is a freelance writer and editor who lives in northern Illinois with her husband, Guye. She doesn’t even own a label maker.