Postcards from the Front
by GREG STONE

Labels: Leave Home Without Them

Has anyone ever counted how many different labels exist on this tiny planet? Everything has a label. Soup, for instance. Next time you're in the supermarket, look at the Campbell's soup section. They have so many strange and wonderful combinations. You will note that each is a unique flavour, holding within, that which portends to be a different taste, with different methods of creation, using different ingredients. But take a closer look. While each flavour is an individual, all flavours share the same red and white label. Each is unique, yet they are all Campbell's.

That may be a somewhat simplistic example, but aren't all of US just different and unique recipes of the brand "Human"? Everyone wants to have a "community". Everyone wants to belong to a group that accepts and welcomes them, understands traditions they carry with them, and promotes causes of interest to their lives. I agree that this is important to our psychological well being. The question is, which group?

The newest label I've come across lately is African American. What exactly does this mean? One could infer that these people have just arrived from Mozambique or some such country and are now joining the American pot. But this isn't the case. The persons who are now referring to themselves as "African Americans" have most often been in this country since they were enslaved a couple hundred years or so ago. So how "African" are they? Yes, the skin colour is similar. But does this make them African? I see many people these days, wearing leather circles cut in the shape of the African continent and showing the African National Congress colours. Does this make them African? Many, it appears, think so. I disagree.

I have a friend (Black) who served in the Peace Corps in Zaire. She brought back amazing stories, like the feast of fried termites as a New Years Eve treat. The culture she described was so vastly different from the culture one sees in the predominantly black areas of the United States, that the only degree of similar- ity is colour. But to say that one group is the same as another group based solely on colour, is racist. Isn't it? Or does it matter who says it, and in which group they belong?

Faggot. Queer. Queen. Terms that will send the masses of homosexuals into an uproar. But wait. If WE use them, it's ok. If THEY, use them, it is a call for action. The potential fact that when one group uses them it's a sign of affection, whereas when the other group uses them it's a sign of hate, is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, in both these examples, the "logic" of grouping principles falls flat.

The fight always boils down to a scrap between US and THEM. Isn't it amazing how US is always right whilst THEM is always wrong (pardon the poor English usage)? How is that?

To judge a person by colour is racist, by sex, sexist or by sexual preference ... homophobic? We need to develop an "-ist" word, don't we?

I had an idea the other day, that sounded kind of interesting and prompted me to write this column. What if, just suppose, all of the groups decided that each was a member of the brand Human, all wearing the same label, but each was a unique flavour sensation?

There are groups in this world that are established to protect the rights of selected persons. African Americans, Homosexuals, truck drivers, and Catholics all have "their" groups to protect "their" interests. With all the special interest protection going on, who is out there protecting humanity? When one fights for self, he or she excludes everyone else. When one fights for humanity, he or she fights for self, the neighbor, the country, and the world com-munity.

Opponents of this worldly principle will claim it is too lofty, too utopian. As long as gay rights are being trod upon, we must fight tooth and nail to win them. Death to the straights and all that good stuff. I would simply ask the question "Why?"

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