Labels: A prose poem

by Jean Rodenbough

May. 15, 2008

First I was, by birthright, a conservative like the rest of my family,
active in politics of the Right during college and fearful of Communists,
then I moved leftward after marriage until I claimed with pride the label
of liberal. I loved the word and did all the things that would put me
into the liberal camp like make friends with the black community during those
dangerous civil rights times when to question prejudices was unacceptable
by the social crowd I ran with and to question the political decisions by a
Republican president got me in trouble and I was no better off because my
alternate label in those days was radical feminist.

Then the L word became a smear from the other side and eventually
lost its wings but soon it was modified to white liberal and that
was not something to be desired so I changed vocabularies and
became a progressive. A naive progressive. An innocent progressive.
I was in the progressive wing of the church and a progressive activist
in civic organizations and so I progressed.

Now the label is no good because the word is attached to mystique which morphs into
progressive myth which leaves some ambiguity but overall I find myself confused and
unable to fit beneath any label so far except some that I will not use lest they too become
out of date and misbegotten.

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