Call me a dreamer, but I don’t think it is necessary for people to be confined to labels or the categories placed on them by others. You know, the kind that makes me black and others white, Latino and any other category you can think of.

How would you know I was black if you weren’t white? Having to categorize people defines who we are, but anytime there is a label attached to a group there’s a stereotype to go along with it and someone suffers.

If you’ve ever noticed the range of a color scheme, you’ll see it begins with the lightest hues and ends with the darkest. But the beauty of the color scheme is not in the separation of them - it’s in how they blend.

This bad habit of labeling goes far beyond issues of race. Would there be heterosexuals if there were not homosexuals? But defining sexuality with labels such as gay, straight, lesbian or homosexual is useless. People love individually; labels govern groups.

If we did not have to categorize people to please our expectations we wouldn’t have ethnic discrimination, gay bashing or racial profiling.

Before the events of Sept. 11, we were quietly fighting among ourselves about these issues. Now there seems to be a new respect, people have grown more in the last few weeks than in the last 25 years.

My new way of thinking began last spring during a cross-cultural English literature class. I had bought into my labels lock, stock and barrel - until my professor began to question me about myself. He would often ask the class, “Who are you? Do you really know who you are?” Of course everyone said, “Yes, I know who I am.”

But he would question further: “What makes you what you think you are? Are you pretty because someone says you’re pretty?”

The professor wanted to us to realize how we have let other’s opinions shape what we think of ourselves. They even influence how we live our day-to-day lives.

Every day when I wake up, I think of the labels and expectations that have been applied to me in the past. At times, these labels seem to be my strength. At other times, categories seem to confine me.

As a woman of the millennium I am self-motivated and living life by my own rules as much as I can. For example, I love to write music with hopes of producing a professional hip-hop album. Even though my family thinks it’s a waste of my time, I do what makes me happy. That’s what should be important- my happiness and your happiness.

The color of someone’s skin shouldn’t matter. Their sexuality should be a personal issue. Their way of living should be their choice. Now that’s liberation and that’s what being American is all about.

But society forces you to recognize these labels and categories that stagnate our growth as humans. As individuals we have to learn to think outside these boxes that have developed. For us to move in a positive direction, we need to let individuals be individuals, with their own expectations of themselves.

A child younger than 3 has absolutely no idea its destiny will be projected through labels and the expectations of others based on those labels. Whatever its own plans and goals are, other people’s expectations and labels will define them. How long will that child remain human before he or she receives the dog tags of other people’s agendas?

Asking society to stop labeling people would be like asking Osama bin Laden to give himself up. But if we could convince a few people at a time to think differently about themselves and each other, it would be an important beginning.

I prayed for two nights asking God for guidance on what to write about for this column. I tossed and turned at night, before finally growing tired enough to sleep. One morning when I got to work this week, a guy was returning a call I had made to him the day before - except he could not pronounce my name. Instead he told my friend who answered the phone, “I think it was a black girl who called me.”

I wasn’t upset by his remark, but I knew immediately what I was going to write about. The caller was just doing what has always been done - catagorizing people.

Let’s plant the seeds of tomorrow with a little more love and compassion for each other. Let destiny tell our story, not some label that means nothing.

Tanee Elston is a State News intern. She can be reached at elstonta@msu.edu.