Ignorance & Intolerance, labeling people

uh.. so annoyed right now.. some things / people push my buttons in the wrong way

I hate labeling above all because I sincerely think that it´s powered by ignorance, intolerance and plain stupidity and the lack of empathy or social skills. I have been labeled all my life to different categories by different reasons. I don´t understand why people just have to stick a label on someone´s forehead "you are this and I made that judgment by your cultural  background / by one song I heard you listen to / after meeting ONE of your friends / by seeing your face " I HATE IT!! Why is it so hard for people to accept the different aspects of one´s personality and background ?

Let´s take music for example. When I was 10 years younger, I was labeled automatically as a goth.. well there might be some aspects to me still that are influenced by the gothic culture, in my music taste, my looks, some of the clothes I wear but when people perceive you as a goth for example somehow they automatically judge you when you suddenly have a business suit on and you are listening to let´s say Jimi Hendrix people automatically wonder if you have turned into something else.. well uhm NO. this would be just another aspect of me. Let´s continue with this music things for a while, I love music in it´s many wonderful forms and categories, I might wake up in the morning and dance to Michael Jacksons You Rock My World around my kitchen and when coming to work I might switch to Lamb Of God´s Redneck ( this would be a good song to fit my current mood actually ), I've never denied any genre or artist from myself because that would limit who I am and I would be labeling myself. Music is a big part of my life and will always be, I listen to trash, gothic rock, soul, blues, RnB, Jazz, rock, speed metal, etc.. that´s why I own approx. 1000 CD´s :) and the collection will be growing as long as I live oh and as a side note, yes I know you can stream anything online nowadays but I love collecting the CD´s because I want to support artists in the best way I can and I also want to go through the booklets and have the cover art and everything :)  Yes, I love mosh pit´s but I love to do some hip hop dance as well. I might be on the dance floor in a club or at a metal festival enjoying some jumping or sometimes, even a wall of death :)

back to the subject, you should get to know the person with that persons several aspects and accept the fact that people have different sides to them rather then forcing an automated label on them. I have been labeled in so many ways during my life and the example I gave about music is probably the smallest label.

Now, background, heritage and cultural differences. I hate racisms and all sort of discrimination. People come in all colors, sizes and shapes and I personally think that´s one of the most wonderful things in the  world, if I would take a picture of all my friends and me, we would probably cover the full set of the color pallet :-D but that´s the way I love it. Having people from different heritages around you really helps you to grow as a person and I see life as a school. I hope to graduate one day :-P It´s sad that after we´ve been on this planet for this long we, humans are still the scum that inhabits this planet when it comes to this subject. all forms of discrimination is destructive, not only to the people who has to suffer from it but to the one discriminating as well and usually these petty individuals understand that when it´s too late IF they ever understand it before their own demise. I´ve been labeled and discriminated because I have a fenno-scandinavian background, yes, the ghostly skin color can also be a fuel for racism. the most memorable comment I have ever heard about my skin color is when I was a kid and met a lady that came to our school for a visit with a larger group to study the finnish way of studying english (  my English teacher wanted me to talk to her to convince her that finnish kids can speak English as well )  immediately when she saw me the first comment was: " oh, I've never seen anyone who is so pale in my life" she turned to my teacher and asked him " it must be a disease? " Nowadays I would have just returned the favor by asking her what kind of mental disease is she suffering from but when I was a kid it really hurt me especially since my self-confidence was already at it´s lowest.

So as a conclusion, try to keep your mind open and you can actually learn and develop yourself further and you´ll be more comfortable in your own skin ..