Prince Ea

I watched this video called 'I Am NOT Black, You Are NOT White' by Prince Ea. 

I had never heard of him before but Prince Ea (Richard Williams) was born in 1988 in St Louis, Missouri. He is now a well known activist and rapper and he speaks about social, political, environmental and humanitarian topics. Below I have listed the points I picked up from watching this video. 

• From birth, you are taught to be black or white. 
• We are given a label and that is what we become. 
• Labels are not you.
• Analogy: when you drive a car, the car is not mistaken for you but when you 'drive' your own body, it is mistaken for who you are. Society is the dealership that deals out cars (bodies) with no return policy, you have to live with them. 
• Race was invented to divide people. 
• Who would you be if the world never gave you a label?
• Labels blind us from seeing who a person really is. 
• When you let an artificial label define you, you minimise yourself. 
• Every war starts over a label of some kind. 

I have highlighted the second to last statement in bold because I think it is the most relevant to my topic. As cultures blend, people become more aware of what other cultures are out there in the world and can identify these as foreign to them. These people may have a lot in common with each other but because a few things are different, they are put into separate categories. Unknowingly, people do this to themselves and set up divides between themselves and certain others which limits their potential as humans immensely. I am not sure whether this is something that will end up in my essay but 'minimising yourself' is something to think about as I continue my research.