Aniah+M’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016

Unstoppable Today
==== When I was young, my favorite holiday was Halloween. The reason I liked it so much was because of the idea that for just one night I could be someone else. That by putting on this costume, I could get rid of all the labels I’d been forced to carry for as long as I could remember. I would no longer be black, or heterosexual, I wouldn’t be lower middle class or Saticoy resident. I wouldn't even be me. I’d become Minnie Mouse or Jack Sparrow. I could choose to be one of the Cheetah Girl’s, Sharpay from High School Musical or even the Mad Hatter. It didn’t matter who I really was, all that mattered was in that moment, I didn’t have to carry the weights and expectations of what those labels said I was. For just a few hours a year, I didn’t have to live with the labels. ====

==== I hate the fact that we live in a world where the first thing we do when we see someone is meticulously label and categorize them down to if there shoes are Velcro or have laces. We categorize each other by superficial things like the clothes we wear or the amount of chemicals in our skin. Just because a girl is blonde or really likes pink doesn’t mean their airheads. It’s something I find sad, appalling and disappointing. Humans are, supposedly, the top of the food chain because were the most evolved, but how is this plausible, when every war ever fought was over labels that say,“ the best kind of person is a rich person,” or ,” to be a ‘good human’ you have to own hundreds of acres of land and be christian.” ====

==== The America I wish I could have grown up in is an America where the labels never exist. I would give anything to live in an America, where people would never think,” wow she’s dark so we should write her off,” the first time they looked at me. I wish that I could live in an America where the fact that I am a woman can mean I get paid equally not less and am not seen as a ‘low quality worker’, because I have a vagina instead of a penis. ====

==== These Labels are what separate us from being the best ‘us’ we can be. In the books and movies, America is always portrayed as a place people can come to and be able to lead the lives they choose, regardless of who or what we are or look like. We, shamefully, live in a country where you can lead the life you want, except you have to be white, male and christian. In America today, we can have a white picket fenced house with the perfect family and jobs. But of course you can’t be black, south eastern or gay. And don’t even think about feeding your family three meals a day if you think women should be able to abort their children no matter the circumstance. Sorry if this makes us mad, because that’s just how the world works doesn’t it. That’s how it was is and will be because we have been appropriating and supporting it subconsciously. ====

==== I have been saying ‘we’ this entire and time and I did it because we’ve all done it before. This isn’t me being a hypocrite and pointing fingers, I mean us as a whole. We’re taught from the day we can properly process information to label. We learned through television, the internet and the adults in our lives that we respect. We were brainwashed, we didn’t choose to think this way. Babies aren’t born hating people, their taught, and that hatred combined with the systematic labeling and categorizing has created major rifts between us through our culture. I’m not saying we should get rid of what makes us who we are to solve this, I just think it shouldn’t define who we are. ====

==== If we wear to much makeup were whores but if we don’t wear enough we’re lazy. If our faces aren’t on the big screens then were not worth the time of day but if they are we’re low lives who can’t get real jobs. If you live in the foothill’s or Pierpont you don’t care for anyone and are seen as the equivalent of Mr. Scrooge, but if you live in Saticoy or the Avenue you work at McDonalds. We say we hate gays, afghans and minorities but that’s because we've labeled them as sinners, terrorists and criminals. These labels separate us by religion, sexuality, social class and race. But how does any of it make sense when we're all apart of the human race, and are 99.9% the same genetically? ====

==== Not only does it cause these gaps in our thinking, but it hurts us emotionally. It hurts me when i’m considered to be “too white” for my “black friends” and “too black” for my “white friends”. It hurts when people assume I have some unspoken hatred or them only because a book that was written a million years ago and is constantly up for interpretation vaguely states that a woman has to be with a man and a man should be with a woman. Being hated by people you barely know sucks, and being rejected by the people who are supposed to be your friends and love you for who you are inside and out, takes a toll on you and I know someone in this room can relate to that. Sometimes we can’t take the rejection and hatred caused by labeling and some of us take it out on ourselves physically or torture ourselves mentally because we're not good enough for one person or another because of a .1%. ====

==== Labels hurt people and are a real threat. They caused the Ferguson riots, the American revolution, and the Japanese internment camps during world war two. Without my ancestors being labeled as savages who needed to be “saved”, I wouldn’t even be here today. I can go on and on because the list never ends and is continuously being added to. If we could live in an America where our lives aren’t dictated by what a word depicts we should be we’d all be much happier. These labels can say were something we aren’t and it doesn’t matter if we agree with the label or not. They control our lives and decide for us who we will and will not become. We have already been victimized by labels, but it’s never too late to be who you want to be and not let a word, label, category, or person make you live in an America you don’t want to. Because if we want to live our America, we need to break our prisons formed by labels and take control. ====