More on Self-Identification
I continue on the point of self-identification that I had touched on previously. Self identification to me seems the only way to go, especially in today’s world where people of different cultures, backgrounds and identities mix a lot.
Take the queer community as an example. In the absence of self-identification we would have to throw people into either gay/str8/bi based on some "objective" criterion. Self identification gives a person the choice of choosing for oneself what he/she wants to identify as: be it gay/straight/bi/different; and the person would have the freedom to change the identification if things change over time.
The concept of self identification helps one identify as a female even if one was born with the male genitalia and raised as such; without self-identification we might as well throw the term transgendered out of the window!
Also, there still are dominant lines : can one deny that ‘bhangra’ music does bring up turban-clad Sikhs in mind, that rap does conjure up the image of a black person, that pasta is more an italian cuisine and paratha indian….. but that does not mean that a non-desi cannot make a paratha better than I do. To deny him/her the right to cook a paratha, and to claim that I can do it better just ‘cos I was raised in India is what I do not agree with. Thus undeniably ‘rap’ has been a part primarly of the black culture, but Eminen self-identified into it; and I think he should be allowed to; that was my point!
Self identification does not mean/imply the destruction of lines of distinction, rather the allowance to cross them, in case one wants to. It does not destroy all walls, just makes them porous to let the refreshment through; so that people inside do not suffocate.
