By Ryan Shrime

Last week a cab driver in NY was stabbed after responding affirmatively when asked if he was a Muslim.

Proponents of the proposed Islamic center near the World Trade Center quickly jumped on the story as evidence of a growing tide of bigoted anti-Muslim sentiment in the country, while opponents rushed to stave off liberal attacks intended to demonize their worthwhile cause.

It took me a little time to figure out why the incident was so troublesome—besides the pesky fact that a human being was stabbed for answering a question, of course.
National protest has villified the Islamic religionI found myself discussing the issue with a relative stranger, and shortly into the conversation, he asked me, "What are you?"

"What do you mean?" I replied.
"Are you Christian? Jewish? Muslim?"
"None of the above."
"Buddhist? Atheist?"
"No. I just believe what I believe."
"So you're agnostic."
"No. I just have my own set of beliefs."
"So you're New Age then?"

And then it struck me that it wasn't the issue that was troublesome to me, but the very conversation itself. Everyone's just screaming anger-filled epithets at each other often without understanding the very words they're using as weapons. Most recently the ticking time bomb of doom was Sharia (Islamic law), so everyone took to the streets with their 'no Sharia' signs, when I can guarantee you 98% of the protesters only know what they've heard on Fox News and conservative talk radio. Nobody actually took the time to read a book on Islam or Sharia before they painted their signs; that would be too time-consuming.

And it is that very reason that the whole conversation surrounding the "Ground Zero mosque"—and indeed most conversations about anything of substance that have taken place since the beginnings of language—was destined from day one to devolve into the back-and-forth rage-fest that it has become. The man I spoke with didn't want to actually listen; he just wanted to categorize me so that he could then filter everything I said through his pre-made sieve of understanding. Before we made too much headway into our conversation he needed to know if I was on his side, and if not, which sign to raise.

Muslim. Christian. Jew. Nazi. Anti-Semite. Terrorist. Communist. Witch. Gay. Straight. I could go on. Our difficulty as a species is not that we have strong opinions or firmly-held beliefs. It's that we feel the need to categorize and label them, thus allowing us to define ourselves in opposition to an ‘other.' Take the cab-stabbing incident. The intoxicated young man's question was direct and easily-answerable: are you a Muslim? Yes, I stab you with my Workman tool; no, I get off at 23rd and 8th and puke on the corner as I had originally intended.

Now, let's imagine a scenario where the word 'Muslim' didn't exist, and the man was forced to ask the cab-driver his question in another way. "What are your beliefs?" By the time the cab driver got around to telling the passenger about Mohammed's first marriage at the age of 25, he would have been speaking over the snores coming from the back seat.

Now, I understand the ease that comes with a label. It allows us to streamline our thought processes and our conversations, much like LOL has allowed us to express our delight without having to go through the exhausting process of actually laughing out loud. But as this whole discussion on the "Ground Zero Mosque" has once again demonstrated-like a child wielding an bazooka—we don't know how to handle them.

We love our labels, because they allow us to instantly sum up the entirety of a human being in a word or two. The minute we've set in our minds that the person in question is a terrorist, they're no longer worthy of being heard; their opinions are valueless and—without much of a stretch—neither is their life. And sure, while there are people on this planet who spew nothing but hate, those people are much fewer and further between than we would like to imagine.

In the 50s, it was 'communist.' In the 18th century, it was 'witch.' And today, unfortunately, it's 'Muslim.' So much so that when the Palins of the world want to call on followers of Islam to 'refudiate' the terror center at Ground Zero, she has to create a new category of Muslims called "peaceful Muslims," thus allowing us to now differentiate between our run-of-the-mill Osama bin Ladens and our friendly neighborhood Christian-loving falafel makers.

Without labels, while we'd be forced to sit down and actually talk to our fellow human beings and listen to their views, we'd unfortunately have to stop calling the proposed WTC center a mosque, and actually call it what it is, which is "a 13-story Islamic center with a basketball court and a restaurant and a culinary school and one floor dedicated to prayer." But mosque just gets people riled up more. We'd no longer be able to hoist our "God hates fags" signs with pride. Instead, our sign would have to read something like "the un-nameable energy that created the entire universe hates people who have sexual intercourse with same-gendered individuals." And that just doesn't have the same oomph. I understand that it's a trade-off worthy of heavy soul-searching, but I think, in the end, after weighing the pros and cons, we might find that hearing someone out before slashing his throat can open a whole new world of possibilities.

I realize here I may sound like new-age hippie asking you to stop labeling everything, but imagine, in the fond wishes of John Lennon, a world with no religion.

I'm not calling for an end to personal beliefs. I'm not calling even for a change in personal beliefs. I'm just asking us to consider the possibility of no longer calling ourselves Christian or Buddhist or Jew or Muslim or Atheist or Agnostic. Would that lessen the fervor of our beliefs? I think not. Would that allow us some breathing space to actually have a conversation before we paint our signs and march against the evil liberal-conservative-terrorist-communist-witch-gay-insert-your-favorite-epithet-here? I think so. 

So, the next time someone asks you "what are you?", maybe take the Popeye-God route, and just tell them, "I am that/what I am." Not to avoid having your throat slashed. But simply to take one step towards a world where we actually listen before we stab.

Ryan Shrime is an actor and writer in Los Angeles, and the cofounder/coproducer of the Middle East Comedy Festival. This opinion first appeared on his blog and is reproduced here by special arrangement.