Race. Religion. Nationality. Politics. Gender. Age. Class. Culture. Left. Right. Us. Them. Some labels help us understand who we are. They connect us to our histories, our communities and our experiences. But labels can also divide us. They can become shorthand for deciding who someone is before we have taken the time to know them. And somewhere along the way, we can forget the one identity every person on this planet shares. Human.
Before the Labels, We Are Human.
We live in a world of labels.
A PERSONAL CREATIVE STATEMENT
Wake Up is a short film and spoken-word poem created by Adrian Luces exploring identity, division, labels and our shared humanity. It grew from a question Adrian has wrestled with for much of his life: Why are we so determined to define one another before we understand one another?
Born in Trinidad and Tobago and raised in Canada from the age of nine, Adrian grew up surrounded by different cultures, backgrounds, beliefs and ways of seeing the world. Throughout his life, he has watched society become increasingly skilled at categorizing people. We place one another into boxes. We assign identities. We make assumptions. We choose sides. And increasingly, those labels can determine whether we listen to someone, or dismiss them before they have even spoken.
Wake Up asks us to consider what might happen if we reversed that instinct. What if we saw the person first?
DIFFERENCE ISN’T THE PROBLEM
Wake Up is not an argument that our differences don’t matter. They do. Our cultures matter. Our histories matter. Our beliefs, experiences and identities help shape who we become. The problem begins when those differences become walls. When a label tells us everything we think we need to know about another person. When disagreement becomes contempt. When belonging to one group requires us to distrust another. When “we” and “they” become more powerful than “us.” Celebrating what makes us different should never require us to forget what makes us the same.
ONE HUMAN RACE
Strip away nationality. Strip away politics. Strip away status. Strip away the categories we have inherited and the ones we have created. Beneath them is something remarkably simple. A person who wants to love and be loved. To feel safe. To belong. To be respected. To have purpose. To be heard. To matter.
Our stories are different. Our experiences are different. Our appearances, beliefs and traditions may be different. But our humanity is shared.
There is only one human race.
WHY “WAKE UP”?
The title is intentionally direct. Because Wake Up isn’t asking us to agree about everything. That would be impossible, and perhaps undesirable.
It is asking something more fundamental: Can we disagree without dehumanizing one another? Can we encounter someone whose politics, religion, culture or worldview differs profoundly from our own and still recognize the human being standing in front of us?
Can curiosity replace assumption? Can conversation replace accusation? Can empathy survive disagreement? Can we stop allowing the labels attached to people to become substitutes for actually knowing them? Perhaps changing the world doesn’t begin with everyone thinking alike. Perhaps it begins with learning how to see one another again.
A WORLD MORE CONNECTED — AND MORE DIVIDED
We have never possessed more tools for connecting with one another. And yet we often seem increasingly disconnected. Technology allows an idea, an accusation or an opinion to travel around the planet in seconds. Social media can bring communities together, but it can also reward outrage, reinforce divisions and reduce complicated human beings to categories and opposing camps. Artificial intelligence will only accelerate our ability to create and distribute information. That makes something profoundly human increasingly important: our willingness to listen. To question our assumptions. To encounter people rather than categories. And to remember that behind every profile, every opinion and every label is a human life every bit as complex as our own.
THE FILM
Wake Up brings Adrian’s spoken words together with music and imagery to create a short visual poem about the forces that divide us, and the humanity that connects us. It isn’t intended to provide all the answers. It is intended to start a conversation. A conversation about identity. About division. About belonging. About how we see one another. And ultimately, about whether the labels we use to describe ourselves have begun to prevent us from recognizing ourselves in each other. Wake Up is currently awaiting release.
BEFORE THE LABELS, WE ARE HUMAN.
Maybe we will never stop using labels. Maybe we don’t need to. But perhaps we can learn to hold them a little more lightly. To ask before assuming.
To listen before judging. To disagree without hating. To recognize difference without creating distance. And occasionally, to look beyond all the words we use to describe one another and remember the simplest description of all: Human.
WAKE UP
A short film and spoken-word poem by Adrian Luces
Coming soon.