Dealing with labels for a lifetime

FLO MARTIN

I’m sad, very sad. In her Wednesday column, “Republicans as far as

the eye can see,” Lolita Harper reacted with “Wow.”

She’s young. I reacted with sadness, because I’ve been around a

lot longer. I have experienced first hand the horrible effects of

man’s blind prejudice and consequent cruelty.

Harper described a certain colorful character who had decorated

himself with a variety of buttons. This fellow apparently hates

liberals. He feels that Hollywood, not Iraq, should be wiped off the

map. And said that liberals are un-American, anti-Christian,

Constitution-hating, antitraditional revolutionaries. The man also

had Harper pegged as liberal. Her gender, her profession and her

marital status all point to her politics, right? Harper’s “wow” was

my “sigh.”

Too many of us are quick to judge our fellow man. Our shallow

mentality allows us to categorize one another into convenient

profiles. Why do you think that is? One possible answer: Profiling

allows us to deal with strangers, allows us to pigeonhole them into

people we think we already know. This way, we don’t have to get to

know them. This way, we can keep our distance and not get too

involved with them. This way, we’re reassured that everyone who

thinks, acts or looks like us is OK, and everyone who’s different is

not.

A second possible answer: We’re leery and distrustful of folks we

don’t know. The distrust sometimes is sometimes pure fear. We’re

fearful of our neighbors, of people who are different from us or who

look different from us, or who talk differently from us, or who think

differently from us.

Recently, my family rented and watched “Bowling for Columbine,”

written and directed by Michael Moore. In the film, he interviews

several locals from Ontario, Canada, who are all very comfortable

with leaving their front doors unlocked. Moore can’t believe his

ears. He decides to find out for himself and surprised to find many

doors in Windsor indeed unlocked. He discovers that Ontarians

generally trust one another.

Moore also uses his lifetime membership in the National Rifle

Association to get an interview with Charlton Heston. Heston welcomes

Moore very graciously into his home and sits down with him for a

friendly chat. However, the chat very quickly turns sour. Heston is

challenged by Moore to justify -- or simply explain -- how a gun got

into the hands of a first-grader who killed a classmate. Moore also

wants Heston to explain why the NRA held a rally in the Columbine

community shortly after the tragedy. Obviously, Moore is no longer a

friend in Heston’s eyes and Heston, no longer feeling very gracious,

walks away without even showing his guest to the door. We can almost

see Heston’s thought process: “OK, this Moore fellow is a lifetime

NRA’er. He’s like me. He thinks like me. He must be a good guy, just

like me.” However, the minute Heston perceives Moore as the political

or social enemy, Heston flees.

I’ve been pigeonholed or prejudged many times. In the late ‘40s, I

was the immigrant Nazi kid who didn’t speak English. In the ‘50s, I

was the weirdo new kid at school who wore weirdo clothes. In the

‘60s, my father, a former teacher at the Army Language School, was

told by its military administration to muzzle his “anti-American”

daughter and not allow her to write such inflammatory, antiwar

letters to the Monterey Peninsula Herald editor. During the Vietnam

era, men in gray suits and aviator glasses openly videotaped me as I

walked into a Malvina Reynolds concert.

Once, a San Francisco police officer drew his gun on me when I

begged him and his partners to not be so rough on a teenage boy who

had just overturned a trashcan. In the ‘70s, my husband lost his

high-security clearance because his wife’s family lived behind the

Iron Curtain. (Currently, my brother-in-law is in the same position

because his wife, my sister, comes from a family that is considered

suspect.) In the ‘80s, I was considered “a liberal” because of my

leadership role in the Garden Grove Education Association. In the

‘90s, I was labeled as a “Jesus freak” because of my involvement with

Mariners Church. An elderly couple cursed me as a “damned

abortionist” just outside the entry as I walked into the Pacific

Amphitheater to hear President Clinton.

Now, some people look at me sideways when they see my ankle

tattoo. And, just last week, the Secretary of Education labeled me “a

terrorist” because of my membership in the National Education

Association.

Well, Mr. “Colorful Character,” how would you categorize me? I

love America. I’m part of a small Bible study group. I’m a faithful

Christian. I participate in a women’s group at Mariners Church that

provides services to pregnant teens and teen moms. I’m a property

owner. I’ve run for public office in Costa Mesa. And, to top it all

off, I have a wedding ring on my finger.

Now here’s where you might get confused. I’m a registered

Democrat. I also hate handguns and semiautomatic weapons. And, the

bumper sticker on my car reads, “Leave no billionaire behind.” Do you

believe that the road to hell is paved with the likes of me? Do you

believe that we’re all going to hell because of me? Do you want to

forego Iraq and bomb my home instead? I sure hope not -- and for your

sake, not mine.

* FLO MARTIN is a retired high school teacher, lectures part-time

at Cal State Fullerton in the Foreign Language Education program and

supervises student teachers in their classrooms.