Oct 01 2008
Labels
I think labels are really useful, especially in the vegetarian/vegan community. It’s really easy to pick out the crazy assholes based on whether or not they defend their label.
Listen, I get that vegetarians/vegans have chosen to adhere to a certain lifestyle. It just so happens that most of that lifestyle revolves around foodages. What I don’t get is people who complain about ovo-pesco vegetarians, flexitarians diluting their label.
You’re a human being and you’re attempting to protect and defend a label? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Then they complain how those people make it harder for them in life because other people don’t know how to treat them.
Maybe this is a lesson people miss. But generally speaking, I treat all people like, well, people. If you tell me you don’t eat meat when I’m offering you a chicken wing, I’m not offended and I don’t really give a crap that you don’t eat meat. Jolly good for you, I’ll think, as I wipe my hot-saucey fingers on a multitude of napkins.
It seems to me that people who are concerned about labeling themselves have divided up their world and think we all should agree to their definitions and labels. Just because you choose to call yourself a vegetarian under your own definition (which is as flawed as any of our definitions) doesn’t matter to me, only to you. But you want to enforce it on the world. You want to tell me how I should or shouldn’t define myself, and my lifestyle. Screw that.
I take up the fight against labels on all sides of life. I don’t belong to a political party, I don’t consider myself heterosexual, I respect that some people might not identify as any one gender. Heck, for a woman I sure do scratch my butt a lot. Historically, enforcing labels has belonged to the majority and its been done to keep the minority down.
Darn vegetarians. Keeping me down.