I'm sure we all have been included in someone's collective - deliberate or unconscious - slur, stated as "you people", meaning a group from which the speaker wants to distance hirself. I think the first time i was annoyed by a "you people", the speaker was putting down immigrants, but i've been subsumed under many groups since.
What people are you lumped in with? What people do you really belong with? And ho do you feel about hearing that phrase?
"You F*%#@ING nonconformists!""
I am a vegetarian in the home of Alberta Beef. 
I often get the disbelieving raised eyebrows "oh you are one of those??" looks.
[quote=al-Qa'bong]
"You F*%#@ING nonconformists!""
[/quote]
Yeah, they're all the same.
Me? I'm a white middle class largely straight cysgenic temporarily abled male with a university education, born and raised in Toronto. Hell, in the dusk with the light behind me I used to be even sort of cute. If I'm the 'you' in anyone's 'you people', I have the privlidge and choice not to care.
I am a vegetarian in the home of Alberta Beef.
Well, what do you people eat? Chicken? Fish?
Yeah, i get that a lot. On the other hand, i get the odd pleasant surprise, too. Today, our server in a restaurant asked whether it's difficult to learn vegetarian cooking.
I know this is kind of in jest, and I don't want to be too much of a wet blanket, but I think it is more productive to think in terms of finding common ground than finding division.
Frankly, I can think of issues of common concern I have had with people of almost every belief and political persuasion, including fundamentalists and conservatives. Thinking in terms of "those people" only turns people into caricatures, and stands in the way of finding solutions.
Never gave it much thought. 
....that said, aside from being told I was going to hell as a kid one of my first real "you people" moments was when a friend of mine went into battle on an environmental issue back in the late 70s wearing a power suit. I hadn't seen that camoflage before.
And I am sure most of us have lifestyle choices that others can't wrap their heads around.
Yeah, i get that a lot. On the other hand, i get the odd pleasant surprise, too. Today, our server in a restaurant asked whether it's difficult to learn vegetarian cooking.
My husband (who is not a small guy) often gets "huh...you don't LOOK like a vegetarian...."
When I say I buy organic or free run or antibiotic /pesticide free I get that oh one of you people look. Usual followed with why organics really don't matter. Reminds me of when I was vegetarian.
I know this is kind of in jest, and I don't want to be too much of a wet blanket, but I think it is more productive to think in terms of finding common ground than finding division.
Frankly, I can think of issues of common concern I have had with people of almost every belief and political persuasion, including fundamentalists and conservatives. Thinking in terms of "those people" only turns people into caricatures, and stands in the way of finding solutions.
I think the key is figuring out when other people are putting divisions between them and you and then show them the common ground.
I know this is kind of in jest, and I don't want to be too much of a wet blanket, but I think it is more productive to think in terms of finding common ground than finding division.
I think the key is figuring out when other people are putting divisions between them and you and then show them the common ground.
That, too. But i was thinking of how some stranger packing me in a conceptual box encourages me to look more kindly upon the others already in there, to identify more with the group than i might otherwise. Becoming part of an "us people" can be a positive experience, as well.
Actually, I probably get it more often in areas of thriftiness, recycling, and re-using. Diving into garbage bins, or removing the untouched fresh fruit that kids have thrown into garbage cans at school gets me more looks than the rest of my political beliefs. And conversely, my feelings about "Those People" who waste and don't even have the sense to pass on perfectly good things to people who can use them is one of my most gut-level prejudices.
So yes, I think we all do it to some degree.
What people are you lumped in with? What people do you really belong with? And ho do you feel about hearing that phrase?
I'm generally heaped in with: "Neo-cons", "Neo-libs", "ZIONISTS!!1!", "Conservatives" and strangely, American-style, free-market/no government "Libertarians".
I'm not sure there's some group I *should* be lumped in with, but for the record, I'm not rich, I don't worship laissez-faire markets, I lean toward civil libertarianism (yes, it's different) and I consistently vote NDP. "Centrists" maybe? But Centrists are a group the way atheists are a group (IOW, by not belonging to one of the other groups).
I was once called a "Zionist" by someone in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, foreign policy, military occupation, Judaism, human rights, or, to be plain, Zionism in any reasonable sense. I concluded that it was a typo and that the poster must have meant to type "Boogeyman".
bleeding heart
bleeding heart
As in, "You bleeding hearts wanna bankrupt the country, feeding ferrin children."? And are you?
As in, "You bleeding hearts wanna bankrupt the country, feeding ferrin children."? And are you?
I'm an activist...depends on which end of the knief you are, usually I'm on the bleeding end, rarely do I get to plunge the knief myself
