AMA response: Seeing beyond Identity and Identity politics.
The word ‘identity’ seems to carry so much more baggage than it did when I was growing up. As our awareness of the harms created and the trauma experienced by racism, sexism, ableism, classism and all the other -isms we can think of increases, as well as the discrimination experienced by those of different sexuality, the language we use seems to be constricted.
And yet in both the CHAT program and in the Rok Kern “Reconciling our global position” courses, one of the first activities we do with participating group members is to do an activity on identity and how we view ourselves. And the intended learning outcome in both workshops is the same: identity markers relate to how we are perceived in society, not how we perceive ourselves, and the gap between our perception and another’s perception is where harm occurs.
Rarely, when we talk about ourselves, are our identity markers how we introduce ourselves to each other. While elements of our identity markers may form part of how we ask others to view us, on their own, they do not show the full picture of who we are. So we don’t use them. Others however, often do use identity markers to describe others.
The importance of language
What do I mean?
Well, what if I give you three sets of words:
Set 1:
Wife and mother, recently moved back to Australia, lover of natural beauty, giant booknerd, passable cook who loves to host people for dinner.
Set 2:
White, hetrosexual, Educated, middle class, Australian.
Set 3:
Mentally ill, welfare recipient, child of a migrant.
All 3 sets of words are true. All 3 sets of words describe me. Taken separately, all 3 sets of words give a very different picture of what I am like.
If I was meeting someone at a party, I’d probably introduce myself with set 1.
Unfortunately, set 3 is how we often describe the beneficiaries of charity projects. Or people we disagree with. Or people we are scapegoating.
I believe one of the greatest challenges we have currently is to see people beyond the labels. One of the ways that the social services, charities and development sectors is doing this recently is to change the language about how we talk about people. Instead of talking about the issues which create disadvantages for people as their defining characteristic, we now place the person at the centre of how we see them.
I am no longer mentally ill - I am a person with a mental illness.
People are no longer defined as poor - they are people experiencing poverty.
People are no longer defined as disabled - they are people with disabilities.
Homeless is no longer a description of someone - they are now someone who is currently experiencing homelessness.
Who is the centre of the story?
Now we can talk about semantics, and we can talk about political correctness, but in this instance, I think it can be helpful to remember to always put the person at the centre of the story. As Mony said in his last video, the way that we think about people matter. In the gospels we see over and over again, Jesus putting people who have been excluded into the middle of the story- those with chronic illness, the racially vilified, those experiencing poverty, the demon possession, those with notifiable diseases, those facing sexual discrimination, thieves, and corrupt officials. We are asked to see the people interacting with Jesus.
And as followers of Jesus, Christians believe that every person carries the image of God.We believe that God cares deeply about every person. We believe that the most defining marker of our identity is as a recipient of that love. We believe that an outworking of our faith is to treat others like we think God would want them treated. It makes sense then, that we make people - the whole complex person - the person experiencing what life has to offer in all its beauty and its brutality - the centre of the story.
