Wyvernphlare

I go under the "Christian" category. I has no problems with labels.

I go under the "Christian" category as well.

That's what I love about the internet. Without someone actually coming right out and saying who/what they are, things like labels and race don't translate to text. The internet can be a true color-blind place.

Saying "I don't use labels or categories" when our minds implicitly do is just an easy way to solve problems of discrimination. It's much more difficult to accept that social categories exists around different features and societal practices, and to accept these different ways of thinking and behaving compared to hating them, than it is to walk around blindly and saying "there are no differences"

There are differences, individual differences and group differences, and these differences should be celebrated rather than ignored for the sake of societal harmony. How is ignoring these differences exist (and thus ignoring the uniqueness of people and the groups they belong to) any better than hating that there are differences in the first place? Because its less violent? Perhaps, but it is a well known psychological fact that people derive part of their identities from their groups, and thus denying the existence of these group differences means we are denying a part of people's identities.

Saying they don't exist by refusing to use labels is simply an easy solution to a difficult problem, and is hardly the best solution. It isn't breeding tolerance for people's differences, its teaching people to ignore that these differences exist in the first place.

That's what I love about the internet. Without someone actually coming right out and saying who/what they are, things like labels and race don't translate to text. The internet can be a true color-blind place.

Race and religion aren't the only labels, and the internet is a whole new ball game in which people create new categories for discrimination as well. Look at our own fandom, we have people divided along generation lines. And then we have people who say it doesn't matter what generation a Pokemon is from, because Pokemon is Pokemon--essentially the real-life equivalent to people not using labels. Yet such logic implicitly says that because you love a specific generation, you are less of a fan.

Sure, not as big an issue as race relations (obviously) but our real life social boundaries repeat itself online, so I would not say the internet is a place blind of boundaries either. It's that other boundaries become apparent.