Identity Politics
The issue of race — specially as it relates to African-Americans and White-Americans — is such a curious subject, particularly for progressives; since, I belive, we’re not afraid to actually explore it. Now, race is clearly an important issue, and it will remain so for a long time — though it admittedly gets more and more complex as other so-called minority groups join the political discourse. Now… I don’t know how to go about this… I’m much more of a socioeconomic progressive, that is, I subscribe to the notion that environmental (societal and economic) factors “largely” trump even issues of race — that is, beyond race we can agree on the impact of socioeconomic factors on our communities. Here’s what I mean: whether one is a poor Latino, poor African-American, poor White or, simply, poor while living in America, lack of access to health care, lack of access to education, lack of access to capital, lack of access to any one of these things will limit how high one can rise and what one can aspire to. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that racism is no longer a factor — clearly it is; however, I am trying to explore the notion that — as I belive — “identity” politics may be limiting and — perhaps — may tie us to a retrogressive model of political/community organizing. Like a lot progressives, I too have taken part in “identity” politics — Chicanismo, Brown Pride — but found that part of my political involvement a bit constraining, because I belive that bigger gaps can be bridged by collaboratively engaging our common enemy — an enemy that often uses societal and economic forces to divide us.
As you can see, this is pretty much stream of consciousness, so my point may not be very clear and, am sure, could be expressed more fully and tactfully — but I hope that the jist of my point is somewhat apparent.
UPDATE: I’d like to add one more point:
“Identity” politics is not going away, and it shouldn’t — it plays an important role, specially early on for a lot of progressives, as we learn of the contributions that our individual communities have made to America. Accordingly, as many commentators have pointed out, we — progressives — need to adopt the organizational model that conservatives have used: whether one is a corporate conservative, a social conservative, an NRA conservative, etc., they’ve all agreed to form a wide coalition and understand that while today one’s pet cause may not get the nod from the “coalition,” perhaps tomorrow it’ll be one’s turn. So, in the meantime, while the corporate conservatives get their estate tax, tomorrow the social conservatives will get their judges — you get the point.
We need to be as pragmatic and our coalition would naturally include progressives of all stripes: environmentalists, feminists, identity politics progressives, socioeconomic progressives, etc.
