Consider the Cagots

In Sapolsky’s passages
On automaticity
Of Us/Them dichotomies,

You might bump into a group
Of stigmatized French persons
Known as Cagots. Sapolsky

Emphasizes the baffling
Lack of any reason why
The Cagots were stigmatized,

Caste-like outcasts, menial
Laborers, required to dress
So as to be recognized,

But of the same faith, language,
Apparent ethnicity
As everyone else around,

With nothing to distinguish
Them from all the rest of Us
In rural France but the name.

Whether or not Sapolsky
Slightly exaggerated
The mystery, it remains

That who you are to yourselves
Is nothing without labels
To tell yourselves who you are.

We imagine aliens
Easily moving through you
Like caterpillars

Among ant larvae, eating
Eggs contentedly, bursting
Into imagos safely,

Knowing to slather themselves
With the matching pheromones
Of words’ naming narratives,

Munching on young minds, watching
While you industriously
Torture your neighbors instead.