Hating labels

“He’s just a liar.”

How many times a day do we hear something like that? Maybe it’s not liar, maybe it’s another label: liberal / conservative. Gay / Homophobe. Feminist / sexist pig. Whatever. Labels surround us every day.

While I can’t hate him as a person, I’ve changed him from a person to just something he does, or one other aspect of who he is. By calling someone “just a liar,” I change him from a fully functioning human being, created by God, with a soul and the promise of everlasting life into “just a liar.” He becomes less than human. The label has stripped away his humanity.

He – the liar – now becomes an object that we can hate because of what he did (lie). If he asks for forgiveness, acknowledges his sin, we remove the label – he’s now forgiven, redeemed, human again. Perhaps a former liar, perhaps still facing punishment for his actions, but now a fully functioning human, without label, whom we can no longer hate.

The insidious evil of labels rang true to me especially as I heard of the tragedy that unfolded in the church in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this week. A white man read on the internet all about a label – “black people.” I’m sure that’s about as kind a label as he read on those pages, which oozed hatred from every pixel. Never human, never equal, never acknowledging their humanity – always labeled.

And he developed a plan. A horrible, awful plan. He was going to make a statement, and kill as many of these labels as he could. So, he grabbed his gun, way too much ammunition, and headed to a bible study at a local church.

And there, he sat. He talked with them – for an hour or more. In the aftermath, he would say something like, “I almost didn’t go through with it because everyone was no nice...”

I think what happened was, they became human to him. He stopped seeing them for the labels he had ascribed to them, the labels he had read on the internet, the evil that he saw in some of the deeds these websites had reported, and he realized they were human. Created by God. He was seeing past the label. He was starting to see their humanity.

But, it was not to be. The labels in his mind took over, and he chose to continue his unspeakable plan. He began …and sadly finished… the task he came to do.

Shortly after, the deceased victims’ family members came out and said how sad they were. How much they lost. Perhaps how angry they were at his actions. But, then…then…they ended by saying, “I forgive you.” They were talking to the shooter. They were talking to the man who had labeled them – and they were talking to him as a human.

They could have called him a monster. They did not.

They could have called him a murderer. They did not.

They could have called him a domestic terrorist. They did not.

They chose not to label him by his actions – the evil he did. They only chose forgiveness and love.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in section 1933, teaches us that “…The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one’s enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy.”

I don’t know if any of the victims’ families are Catholic. But, they are living this aspect of the Catholic faith as well as any I’ve seen in recent memory.

I pray that I’m strong enough to not label others by their actions. I pray I’m never called to be as strong as these people were when they were given the opportunity to label and hate.

And while my heart breaks for the loss of life, and the victims' families and friends much more personal loss, I praise God for the truth that they have witnessed to us all.