ESL Blogs

 “People like to label somebody else without aware on the effect that might be happen the person or the victim that they labeled with”

“JuGul!!!!!!!!”, My teacher and my classmates have been labeling me with that word when I was in High School. It was the shortening of my name, JUmaida GULtom. One of my teachers created and awarded that name-calling to me. Even it was only the creative shortened of my name; I didn’t like being called “Jugul” at all because it has a bad meaning in Bataknese language. JuGul means a pig headed or bull headed. I was not JuGul at all. Even if, I was Jugul, they did not deserve to insult me in such way. Whatever their reason was, I just didn’t like being labeled as JuGul. My teacher said that it was just for fun to make others laughing and to make the class become more alive. Yes…., they were having fun with it but I felt insulting of it.

I ignored anybody who called me with that name and declared to them all that I would not talk with them as long as they called me “JuGul” but it didn’t work.

One day, the teacher who created that name asked me to go in front of the class to answer his question on the board. Because of he called me “JuGul” instead of Jumaida Gultom. I just kept silent on my seat. All of my classmates stared at me curiously. My teacher approached me to my seat and asked me why I didn’t response on his calling. Simply I replied to him that I didn’t hear my name was called. For my surprised, He laughed at me and wondering why I was still arguing with him about that name. I said to him that I didn't like it because my parents named me Jumaida with a purpose. There was deep meaning on my name, it’s a hope in it to me. Since that time my teacher and friends were no longer called me “JuGul”. but some of them keep calling me “Jugul” until now.

It was one of a slight example of labeling other just for fun. Let’s see another case. This story came from an anime TV series titled “Detective School Q”, Hoshihiko Kokuo who was known as King Hades, the antagonist in the movie. He was labeled as “the criminal” since he was General High School. He was not a criminal at all and he was a good boy and a type of cheerful student. He was labeled as “Criminal” when his hidden identity was revealed to public that he was a son of a multi-talented genius artist, Takumi Kuzuryu, who well knows as a very genius criminal. All of his artwork masterpieces were created for the crime purposes. Since that time, he was bullied and labeled as a criminal by his classmates and even his teachers too. Hoshihiko felt disappointed and felt like being betrayed by them. He punished them all by secretly putting a chemical substance to set fire in the bathroom and burnt them all. He arranged that incident as if it was just normal accident and then he was scot-free. Dan, Hoshihiko's best friend tried to convince him that he was committing a crime. Hoshihiko said to Dan that both of them couldn't be a friend anymore like before because they both have aimed different goals of life and then he left the school.

Labels are things you stick on something or someone like a Nametag. Sometimes labels can be good which is usually bring a sense of identity to a person and can bring benefits along with it. Other times labels can be bad. It can have long term negative effects to that person.

The use of labels is more than judgmental and hurtful as well. Unfortunately when it comes to labeling, we are more likely to say something unpleasant and insulting over something positive. Labels can be just as damaging, as they are rewarding.

The Given "criminal” label to Hoshihiko Kokuo has made him became the real criminal. We need to stop labeling other people with negative one! We don’t need doing that because we’re all human beings and all of us deserve get respect from others. We will never know how the label could affect somebody's life.

“Please, stop labeling people!”