Prompt: Defended Identities

[packbat]

For anyone who feels like answering, here or in their own journals:

Consider the following fill-in-the-blank: "If someone said I wasn't _______________, I would object."

(Clarification: Imagine someone is describing you - either explicitly (e.g. "Robin isn't a guy!") or implicitly (e.g. "She likes LJ") - and they describe you inaccurately (see either of previous examples). The question is not whether you correct them - an interesting question of etiquette - whether you dislike being described thus.)

I'm going to cheat a little and bring in the original impetus of this: a while back, someone made a joke in my presence about the need for someone black to hang out there. I objected, because I am black. (And then acceded to the guy's riposte that I'm merely "off-white", because, well, I pretty much am in the cultural sense.)

In retrospect, though, it really surprised me. I didn't think I identified with being black, particularly, yet I did. So it got me thinking: what else would I react to that way? What other double-negative identities have I got?

Well, if someone said I wasn't an American, a U.S. citizen, I would object. If someone said I wasn't a person, a moral agent, I'd object. If someone said I wasn't smart, I'd object. If someone said I wasn't a decent person, that I was absolutely no good, that I was evil and wicked, I'd definitely object.

If someone said I wasn't a Republican, I might well object. I'm a registered Republican. I voted in the Republican primaries. (I'd talk about my votes, but that stuff belongs in the other journal.)

If someone said I wasn't a Boy Scout, I'd object. If someone said I wasn't an Eagle Scout, I'd object.

...I don't know what else I'd object to being not. I'm not invested in being male, or being human, or being a liberal or a geek or a writer or a painter. But it's curious some of the things I'll refuse not to be.

Comments

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Well, you really don't feel Republican, so I can see why a) it would happen and b) why you would object.

Just sayin'.

[ailado.livejournal.com]

If someone said I wasn't a music lover, I'd object. If someone said I wasn't invested in the well being of those I love, I'd object.