What's In A Word?

Recently I saw "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" at the St. Louis Repertory Theater.  I thought that it would be hard to bring that wonderful movie to the stage, and no one, and I mean no one could possibly take Sidney Poitier's place.  I was right about Sidney, but the play was very well done.  One line really struck me and I've been thinking about it for several days.  In the mist of an argument with his father, John Prentice says that when you use the word "colored" to describe him, you limit him...wow!

It started me thinking that words that describe us because of race, religion, sexual preference, or gender, do in fact limit us.  Why do we need statistics that group children by race....what does race have to do with the way someone learns?  Why do we define a CEO as a woman or man....what does gender have to do with the way they do their job?  Why do we describe someone as an African American, an Hispanic or a Caucasian...what does the color of someone's skin have to do with who they are as a person?

These limiting words have limited us as human beings.  Using these adjectives cause us to ascribe characteristics to people that stereotype them.  We see the riots in Ferguson and everyone, well almost everyone, decried what "those people" were doing to their neighborhood.  Not many of us stopped to really look at the sadness in the eyes of the neighborhood people who couldn't understand what people from out of town were doing destroying buildings and businesses.  We hear of a woman CEO whose comments are called harsh and biting because, well, woman aren't supposed to be like that...soft and sweet and walked on is what women should be.  We hear the church talk about injustice but don't stop to think about the injustice that same church inflicts on women (men and children also) every single day.  We complain about the immigration problem because  we don't want our tax dollars going to educate or support Hispanics (or any other non Americans) and fail to see the good that could come to our country from educating young women and men of promise.

Limiting words....really do limit our perception of a person as an individual with talents and skills.  Limiting words...perpetuate the stereotype that has formed and reformed over the years. Limiting words...end up limiting us, the very people who use those words every day.