By TINA IYER
Features Editor
 

Clearly, there is a problem with this - when those who are of color are the only ones who "have race," or those who are gay or lesbian "have sexual orientation," and so on. These labels can become, unfortunately, the sole determinant of someone's identity- whether they wish it so or not.

But this issue leads to different problems as well, and they are problems that I can only pose as questions, because it seems to me that the answers are very relative and very subjective (as I suppose all answers are). What happens when a marginalized group in society is making its voice known, demanding the respect and understanding that they deserve, and support is offered to them by persons who are not within their group of marginalization? What role does the non-other have in the activism of the other? Who can claim allegiance, offer support, or claim to understand a group of people? Only those who are labeled and identified in the same manner?

Can straight people fight for gay rights? Can white people work for the respect of people of color? Can physically able people demand greater accessibility and understanding of those who are disabled?

They can, I think, and no one completely denies this. But to what degree? How much can we speak for others when at the end of the day it is possible to shed "the cause" because we are not stigmatized by whatever label the group whose "cause" we believe in is? When is it patronizing to work for someone else? Does a line need to be drawn between when we are motivated to support others by guilt based on our own privilege, and when it is true compassion that drives us to try to improve our community?

I don't know.

This matter of identity and labeling has another angle, one that was articulated by Associate Professor of Anthropology Val Carnegie in his T.G.I.F. lecture last Friday. He mentioned the frustration that he sometimes felt as a black man who was tied so closely to his label that he was not free to explore all of his many interests. Carnegie voiced his fascination with China, Japan, and Spain, but also spoke of his sense that he could not study them in-depth because he felt somehow responsible for studying "his own kind."

What happens when we become the spokespersons for our own group to the degree that we cannot speak for or to anything else? What happens when working for the rights of our own prohibits us from pursuing our own freedom? Are we so tied to our own labels, by choice or not, that we become too overburdened by our identity?

I don't know.