Living with Labels - Disney's "Aladdin"

I teach MUSC 1040, United States Music and Culture, at Salt Lake Community College. As part of the curriculum, the review of two textbooks is required. One of the textbooks is a discussion about social problems and how music has influenced them and vice versa. One of the chapters talks about "deviant behavior." It presents the argument that deviant behavior is associated with music, musicians, and fans of certain music genres. So, what is deviant behavior? The textbook explains it as behavior that is out of the norm. The textbook identifies drug use, sexual promiscuity, sexual disorientation, Satanism, swearing, etc. to be out of the norm for musicians. Psychologists, sociologists, and religionists can identify more than this to be out of the norm for human beings. We are left to wonder what behavior is the norm?

Deviant behavior is identified when someone decides that a certain behavior could be a problem. Deviant groups are formed in the following steps:

1) a behavioral problem is identified
2) people are found who do that behavior and are labeled as deviant
3) those people feel labeled and act out that behavior
4) those people find others who do that same behavior; they associate and become a group.

Bringing it to a personal level, I've asked in my classes who has been given labels, and it is interesting how the hands shoot up. Everyone is labeled at one time or another. Many of us spend our entire lives overcoming labels we've received. So, what do these kids feel labeled about? Being inactive at church, being a rebel, being stupid, being slow, being quiet, being a nerd (which has now become a generational thing; being called a nerd in my generation is still considered an insult, while nerds to my children's generation are highly admired), being irresponsible and lazy, being liberal or conservative, being sinful, not religious, having autism, ADHD, Asperger’s, etc. There are so many things psychologists have identified as not normal behaviors.

Aladdin and the song “One Jump Ahead” perfectly illustrates how labeling works and how labeling an individual as deviant can result in more deviance. Some of the more important lyrics in the song are: “I steal only what I can’t afford, that’s everything,” “Stop thief! Vandal! Outrage! Scandal! Let’s not be too hasty….gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we’d get along” and finally “riff, raff, street rat, I don’t buy that, if only they’d look closer, would they see a poor boy? No-siree, they’d find out there’s so much more to me.”

When I was growing up, I was labeled as smart, quiet, gullible, talented, thin, introverted, passive, and lacking self-confidence. The new idea being passed around by psychologists then was that a person needed to be aggressive and self-confident to become anything or accomplish anything in life. Well, in my present situation I wasn't going to be doing anything. To address my quietness, my mother had me read to her while she sat two rooms away. Basically, I had to scream. If that didn't cement in me the idea that being quiet wasn't good...  I hated it when people told me I was quiet. That always dredged up how bad I was; it meant I was incapable of functioning, as I had been programmed to believe.

My lack of self-confidence was an issue I had to deal with. I don't know how I got through school without it despite the fact that I was also labeled as "smart." When I was hired on to my first job as a secretary, I had to answer the phone. Oh man, I did not know what to say or how to answer their questions past the initial introduction. It showed off my lack of self-confidence in the extreme. To my surprise, after three years of suffering through answering a business phone, I realized I wasn't suffering so much; it had become easier. I didn't dread it so much, and I actually became good at it. Ah-hah, so, it wasn't my lack of self-confidence! It was my lack of experience. I came up with the saying that "confidence comes by experience," a motto that has helped me through many struggles.

I served a mission to Costa Rica-San Jose. There I encountered some of the same labels, but while there, I made three goals for myself. My LTM companions, Melanee (Anderson) Sainsbury, and Vicki (Spence) Stith, made three also, and we shared them amongst ourselves.  Mine were: 1) to acquire a firm solid knowledge of the Gospel; 2) gain confidence in myself; and 3) develop a close relationship with my Heavenly Father. When I returned from my mission, I realized I had been blessed with having accomplished all three of the goals. In regards to #2, occasionally people tried to undermine my confidence or tell me I was cocky or some such thing. I even tried to lose it on one occasion, but finally learned to ignore those labels because I couldn't agree with them. It was a gift I had been given, the gift of confidence in myself, and I had to continue on in my life using it to "become something" and "accomplish something."

I appreciate all the compliments I receive from people about being talented, but I look at it in a completely different way than most people mean it. Some people have called it a God-given talent, but I can play the piano well because I worked many years practicing that skill. My Heavenly Father provided the means through my parents and teachers, and my learning was affected by the things that my “intelligence” came to earth with (perhaps stick-to-it-tiveness or perfectionism), which each of us have, according to the Pearl of Great Price. Divine help was there to buoy me up when the going got rough and to help me see a way to accomplish what I needed to do, but I had to put in the work. Anyone could do the same. There are also aspects of my piano playing that are and always have been frustrating to me. For example, I struggle with speed. It's possible that my "perfectionism" gets in the way. My Heavenly Father has always let me know when I am thinking too highly of my abilities. Therefore, my ability is to be used for good, as quoted in my patriarchal blessing, and always to lift and support others.

I still am gullible, and I accept that. I also tend to be introverted still. I came out of that condition significantly on my mission, but I have slipped back into my natural self. I presently work at CC, and I can spend an entire day not talking to anyone and be fine, but I also know that when occasion calls for it, I can tap into some latent extrovert behavior to get the job done.

Being labeled smart would probably seem to be a good thing. After all, doesn't everyone want that label? Certainly being considered stupid or slow, opposites to smart, would tear at someone's psyche in a way that could be irreparable, and many negative labels given in childhood need to be dropped. While in college I had to come to terms with my "smarts." I distinctly remember facing the possibility of not being able to live up to that label. I came to realize that I was not smart about everything. There were a lot of subjects I knew nothing about and would never know about, and as I get older, this continues to become apparent, as my field of knowledge narrows. I had to learn how to deal with not knowing something and how to react to others around me. Feeling embarrassment for not knowing something made me figure out how to accept not knowing in myself. Also, being derided for not knowing something made me realize I never wanted to belittle someone for their lack of "knowledge." Again, experience usually dictates what someone knows, what they have done, where they have been, what they have been exposed to.

Still, I was called "quiet." Somehow, as "quiet" as I was, I got jobs, went on a mission, completed school, got married and had kids, and have maintained a piano business for years. Eventually, when my kids got older, I realized that some of them had inherited their dad's voice, and I realized that I had done exactly that, inherited my dad's voice, but I hadn't given myself permission to accept that idea before then. I also inherited my dad's hypoglycemia, and if ever that got out of whack, there went my voice even more. Since I've had the job of teaching at SLCC, I've had to make sure my voice projects, and I've had to make sure my hypoglycemia is stable so that my voice works. Sometimes I have used a microphone, but since working as a communications assistant at CaptionCall, I've had to project sufficiently so that the headset/computer picks up everything I say. So, I've had to stretch the limits of my vocal cords. Doing that everyday for eight hours has given me more of a voice, so this year I am not using the microphone in my classes. We will see if I get any complaints. I can say that I have empathy for those who are viewed as quiet or any other "negative" label, but I also have empathy for those who have loud voices, and there are those at Sorenson CaptionCall who are reprimanded for being too loud. Yes, it happens.

My mother said to me the other day that she was concerned about my father because he didn't have a sense of humor. I was surprised when she called it a "disorder," and I corrected her and called it a "characteristic." It's unfortunate that we put quality with the labels, but I am not sure how we can overcome that entirely. In my view, disorder comes in when we belittle each other for their particular characteristics. For example, getting angry at someone for having a sense of humor or lack of is unproductive. Rather, we need to understand, accept, and adjust. Not easy, but it's what is required when dealing with people. It's possible that all those labels I was given when I was younger were true, but as life has progressed, I have grown out of them, or accepted them and learned strategies (the word educators use) to live with them. I have dropped the label of no self-confidence. I don't think it is part of me at all anymore, and those who think I am quiet really don't know the true me.

Since writing this in 2014, I have added to it with additional perspective on labels. Labels will come and go, some will have the potential to ruin our lives, but we have weaknesses to draw us closer to our Heavenly Father. He has said that if we humbly take our weaknesses to Him, He will make those weak things become strong. (Ether 12:27) I have seen this firsthand. 


 

Written in 2014 but published in 2016