nobody asked…

Soon after college my big-company employer (let’s just call it “Th’ Company”) transferred me to HQ in Pittsburgh. Almost everyone I met there asked the same question, usually just after the “gladtameetcha”s. They all wanted to know “What are you?” Now I can be downright slow at times, but until they ’splained it, I had no friggin’ idea what they were talking about.

“OK…you know, like where do your people come from?”

“Well, most of Daddy’s side came from down from Kentucky, and Mama’s, well they wuz kinda scattered all over, I guess. But mostly they came over the mountains from Carolina.”

“No, no, no! What nationality are you? Like I’m Italian and my wife is German. What are you?”

“Hmm…Never really thought about it much. Guess we’re just Americans.”

And so it went. Everybody up Nawth seemed to be preoccupied with labels that defined origin, religious affiliation, political party. Well, at least they tended to separate those last two, unlike too many Suthunuhs today who bow to the entity they perceive as the Fundamental Christian Conservative Republican Party Church.

Labels and stereotypes never did sit well with me. Maybe because I didn’t like some of the labels folks hung on me. Maybe because labels always seemed to restrict, creating bounds where there should be none, stymying growth to stay in the designated box. To be sure, all of us have tendencies, leanings, preferences, yes, even affiliations and memberships. But I still try to duck the labels that so many folks use to brand and judge others.

My inlaws think I’m a Democrat, meaning “not like them”, which is unacceptable. My family back home all worry that I may be a Republican simply because my political preferences have drifted from my Democratic upbringing. Actually, over the years I have probably voted one way about as often as the other, and far too often only to vote for the lesser of two evils or to vote against a candidate rather than for one. I belong to no party. As for identification with a party or political ideology, I am more often comfortable with the Libertarian point of view than with any other.

If pressed, I describe myself as politically moderate, socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Most of the time. On most issues. But don’t put me in a box!