To the editor:

Growing up I always found it hilarious that my father was considered an “alien” according to his Green Card. It was just sort of a joke until recently when I started opening my eyes to the reality of labels and their effect on society. Labeling has many negative consequences affecting a person’s social, political and economic well-being, as well as many other aspects. Besides a person’s immigration status, labels such as mental and physical disabilities, socioeconomic status and race or ethnicity can all be forms of discrimination that should not be used to define someone.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that the language we use, such as these labels, shape our way of thinking, such as the perception that certain people are inferior to others. This branding reduces a person’s humanity while making others believe that they are more worthy and important. This is preposterous! In dehumanizing others, we ourselves become less than human. Even worse than our own implicating labels is what they make the oppressed do to themselves. After years of being told one is worthless, he or she begins to believe it and live it out in an example of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

Many of these stigmas are ingrained in our society and it is no easy task to change the institution of language and thus a society’s cognitive function. What we can do is be aware of our biases and realize that they can in fact cause a great deal of harm even unintentionally.

Sergio Klassen