We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.
It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
The essence of oppression is that one is defined from the outside by those who define themselves as superior by criteria of their own choice.
I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.
I am whatever you make me, nothing more.
I always let other people describe me because if I describe myself you will not understand.
I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.
How dull it is to have people defining you.
The thing with labels is they're not for you, they're for other people. Like labels are just a word for other people to understand you and that's it.
