In today's society, we cannot recognize and appreciate who a person really is, because our minds are too busy questioning about racial identity; whether or not you pass, and how well you fulfill the standards, the requirements of that particular race. You cannot be seen as a beautiful, poetic woman, for this description is too bare for the average mind to simply accept, but add a little racial identification, "a beautiful, African-American, poetic woman", and now everything will be okay. Now one can internally further their judgment based on these vital words. People need not know a person too well, all they need to know is what there racial identity is, for without these small bits of information, the judger too feels at a loss of racial identity because there is no other ways of comparison in the average mind.
" Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference", written by Audre Lorde, talks about how humans see differences in extreme opposites, where as everything is beautiful or ugly, good or bad, positive or negative, this or that no in betweens. If we allow things such as in betweens, then the boundaries of what is interpreted as good and bad have now been crossed, and we can no longer define what is and what isn't. With the ways in which society has been raised, we would go crazy without a sense of self-identity, definition, classification. People have this need to be into the many divisions, sects of people that exist. Once we have our label, our place of belonging, we can then go on in our merry lives and pretend like we are having a good time. When in all reality, our label is nothing but a word, a prejudged view of some sort this really is no sense of self, for there is no individuality left. Individuality is something everyone craves, but to be an individual is to stand out from your crowd, to step out of your safety net. "There must be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior.