Labels Can Be Harmful

To begin my blogging again, I'll share this poem written a while ago because it seems to be relevant still, unfortunately:

        First I was, by birthright, a conservative like the
        rest of my family, active in politics of the Right
        during college and fearful of Communists. Then I
        moved leftward after marriage until I claimed with
        pride the label of liberal.  I loved the word and did
        all the things that would put me into the liberal
        camp like make friends with the black community
        during those dangerous civil rights times when to
        question prejudices was unacceptable by the social
        crowd I ran with, and to question the political
        decisions by a Republican President got me in
        trouble and I was no better off because my
        alternate label in those days was radical feminist.
                 Then the L word became a smear from the
                  other side and eventually lost its wings but
                  soon it was modified to white liberal and
                  that was not something to be desired so I
                  changed vocabularies and became a
                  progressive.  A naive progressive.  An
                  innocent progressive.  I was in the
                  progressive wing of the church and a
                  progressive activist in civic organizations
                  and so I progressed.
        Now that label is no good because the word is attached to 
        mystique which morphs into progressive myth which
        leaves some ambiguity but overall I find myself confused
        and unable to fit beneath any label so far except some that
        I will not use lest they too become out of date and
        misbegotten.