when you were languishing in rooms I built to file you in...

it never ceases me amaze me

I mean, I understand it, really I do...this predelication toward stereo types, pigeonholing, finding a place for everything and everything in it's place
I too file and classify certain behaviors and note when people live up to certain expectations based on social group, background, etc...

But still, I try to have conversations with an open mind. I try to assess personal traits without quickly trying to assign every move, gesture and opinion to some sort of predefined social stigma or class. Which is why it pisses me off when I enter a conversation with someone bound and determined to find everything I say the symptom of one easily definable trend, the proof positive that I am a cookie cutter copy of some social class, group or ethnicity they really don't want to try to understand in the first place.
I mean, why am I talking anyway?
Why don't they read a book or just stare at a picture and make up their own stories? Hey, here's a crayon...color in between the lines.
But I do...I try to somehow have these... interactions,you can hardly call them conversations as they have little to do with communication. I'll say something and it'll immediately be filed in their head "oh, well sure you think that hippie!". Sometimes I don't even need to talk, I'll put on a pair of jeans or take my coffee a certain way or (gasp) have a drink and something specific has been communicated, not just about me, but about this whole huge group of homogenous people I occupy.
I mean, I have a sense of humor, and I like to bandy these terms about with a certain affection, sure.
Hippie, lefty, commie, hipsters, slacker, psycho.
Sure, sure.

But when I am actually engaged in a PERSONAL interaction with someone, and I feel like they are just sitting there, waiting for every little thing I say to prove their preconceptions right, it really chaffs my hide.
It's degrading and insulting and completely robs an interaction of it's personal elements, and the people in question of their autonomous ability to reason.

And sure, sure, nothing exists in a vacuum and stereotypes exist for a reason. But assuming your prescribe some level of independent thought and complex reasoning to your own thoughts, beliefs and behaviors, it's presumptuous and offensive to not allow those you speak to with to possess the same attributes.