We might not like it when the majority decides to embrace their "identity" and move collectively against the rest of you. Or when statistical averages concerning the relative strengths and weaknesses of gender are used to exclude all members of said gender from certain jobs, regardless of their individual abilities.

Martin Luther King had it right, in my opinion.

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it's the INTERESTS of your "identity" that matters.


when liberal leaning Jews vote for Lieberman because h'es 'one of them', and essentially against their own beliefs and self interest but for their "identity", they make a huge mistake.

Women are best served by voting for the candidate who most supports their own self interests.
Blacks are best served by voting for the candidate who most serves their self interests.

what the candidate's personal "identity" is or is not could not be more irrelevant.

Margaret Thatcher is a woman. Ann Coulter is a woman... do these people serve women's interests?

that's the problem with "identity politics"

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The author doesn't even know what the term identity politics means. It means voting for or supporting someone because of their color, gender, ethnicity, etc. It is the same as racism, except instead of hating someone because of the way he or she is born, you like him or her because of it. If you support identity politics, you think that, for example, blacks should support Clarence (Uncle) Thomas who does more harm to blacks than most whites on the Supreme Court, and women should support pigs like Margaret Thatcher, who does more to harm women than progressive male politicians.

Sheesh, talk about an unthinking, knee jerk position!

Identity politics is just plain stupid and it HAS done major harm to progressive movements by taking votes and support away from progressives who just happen to be white, male, or both.

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Why do we suddenly have a female and a black candidate?

It is because the Iluminati is in peril and offering up fem and black NWO candidates is in the interest of maintaining the status quoe.

Vote Ron Paul or if you Have to vote democrat vote for Mike Gavin.

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Why do we suddenly have a female and a black candidate?

It is because the Iluminati is in peril and offering up fem and black NWO candidates is in the interest of maintaining the status quoe.

Vote Ron Paul or if you Have to vote democrat vote for Mike Gavin.

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Well, no. Because the Left has been getting it's ass kicked for half a century and the reason(s) why don't include progressives using the term "identity politics" in a way that Right-wingers tend to use it.

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Just a bit drunk, Imeant Gravel of course.

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Conservatives have a core set of "values". They love war. They hate the poor. They love the rich. They love spying on you and telling you how to live your life. They hate gays. They love to fry criminals, torture Muslims, drown puppies, etc...

Can you say the same for liberals or progressives? What core things can they agree on?

The rights of the poor?...Well, yes and no...If you're a white male, you can't possibly be poor, because you're a member of a privileged elite who owned slaves 200 years ago, and runs all of the big corporations now. Sorry. No soup for you.

Equal rights?...Well...Here's the thing: Women and people of color are victims, so we're going to have to make them a little more equal until such a time that we can determine that everyone is equal. You understand, right?

You don't understand? Well...If you were female or black, or Native American, you would. But since you're not, you can't possibly understand. Now go play cowboy, watch football, leave pizza boxes everywhere, or whatever else you white males do these days.

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women being the only victims. I'm just as sick and tired of today's overwhacked feminism as I am of male chauvanism. Instead of worrying about bans on "abortion", gays/lesbians, affirmative action, etc ... attention would be better paid to the economic, environmental, security and privacy, etc ... where the current SCOTUS is inflicting SEVERE DAMAGE on the working/lower/middle class, the environment, privacy, security, etc ... Anyone who thinks the rightwing will succeed on banning "abortion", gays/lesbians, affirmative action, etc ... has not been paying attention. The rightwing will misuse social issues to keep the voters frothing and distracted from what's really killing them. Now tell me how many social-liberal-only Democrats have done anything for you people when they join the rightwing especially on the economy and foreign policy. Get away from the frivolous social issues and focus on what's really important and progressives will win.

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Just like the corporate greedmongers get 90 per cent of us squabbling over the crumbs while they hoard 90 per cent (or more) of the wealth, they use identity politics to turn us against each other. As long as we allow ourselves to be manipulated into seeing people as stereotypical groups, we won't achieve either harmony or justice. Many "progressives" and "liberals" sneer at the idea of a color-blind, gender-blind and nationality-blind society - and insist we must focus only on certain groups that suffer the most. Yet, we can and must learn to see all as individual, unique human beings, or it will always be "Us vs. Them".

Am I not aware when I meet a person whether they are black or white, have a foreign accent, wear certain kinds of clothes, etc. Of course. But the point is, none of that matters to me. I care about whether the person, first of all, is friendly, second, whether we have any commonalities to share - concerns, interests, likes and dislikes... Actually, I think much of the prejudice we experience derives from misguided and unhealthy ways of dealing with the vulnerability we all feel as small children. The "fast food" way of feeling more important and powerful is to put someone else down - whether it be because they are weaker, or blacker, or Jewish, or foreign, or gay... If we could raise children to simply accept and love themselves for who they are, and find security in that, they would have no need or desire to denigrate others.

I chose my name - "Liberty" in 1979 and I know that "liberty for all" is the only formula that can ultimately succeed. And that means identifying ourselves purely and simply as fellow humans. And it means that NO human being should be mistreated or left with basic needs unmet. United we stand - divided, we let the fat cats reign.

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An Aging Radical on Race and Politics

I don't write much these days. Formerly I wrote quite a bit about
radical politics and social transformation, but I've grown weary of
that practice and it never really seemed to amount to much anyway. In
my experience it's often thankless work if you're promoting
revolutionary changes because there aren't that many who can truly
appreciate radical ideas. And, even if some do appreciate the ideas,
they usually couldn't help you in many ways even if they were so
inclined. Anti-materialistic philosophy often effects the choices
people make in their lives (in terms of acquiring and dispersing even
the most fundamental necessities). And these days a guaranteed home
and food supply, to say nothing of ample leisure, is often considered
something of a luxury. The progress of the civilized world has led us
to a place of slums and hundreds of millions being severely
malnourished. I could, and will, go on highlighting the serious
shortcomings of the modern global system -- but that's just a backdrop
to the ideas I will be trying to develop in this article.

This is difficult for me because I am loathe to discuss the topics of
the title which relentlessly cause so much stress, in so many ways, in
so many lives. I think these things are important to consider and
thoughtful consideration is still something that I have a bit of
respect for. So I am going to present some ideas here which will
inevitably be received as somewhat controversial by so many backwards
regressive types who run roughshod over everyone and everything they
can. Controversy is not my goal. Neither is addressing the criticism
of small corrupted minds. Once again... it's thoughtful consideration
which I hope to engage in, and possibly inspire, to some degree. If I
could make these ideas into single soundbite or a pill which you could
pop for enlightenment, I would -- but I am not Fox News or Pfizer.
These ideas are best presented with a well developed background and
so, as wildly as the world is spinning out of control, I'm not going
to rush what I have to say. If you don't have the attention span to
take a few minutes to consider these subjects (about which some of you
might even fancy yourselves as experts), then you are possibly part of
the problem. And I don't herein present myself as infallible, but I
will try here to be honest and, again, only hope to make some of us
think a bit. The tone of this article will be blunt, casual, and
frank -- it's the only way I can write it.

RACE

Like many Americans, I have very limited knowledge about my racial or
ethnic history. I know that I am pale and ate at McDonald's as
child. If people feel they can or can't trust me because of these
things, I can understand the conditioning that would lead to that
narrowmindedness. But to provide a background of my own experience,
here are the specifics that I know about my own personal ethnic/racial
makeup... One grandfather claimed his relatives came from a country
between France and Germany which no longer exists. Obviously this
doesn't tell me much and, frankly, I'm not sure where he's talking
about or if he had any real clue himself. He and his family were
farmers in Arkansas, perhaps cotton-pickers like ... complete article concludes here: http://raceandpolitics.notlong.com/

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everyone should watch the movie "Earthlings."

our only identity right now should be this: humans trying to create a sustainable planet for ourselves and all other beings.

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frankly, no, no, no. True radicals too despise identity politics. It is a tool, not a theory, used to incite political action, but it is as divisive for the whole cause of social liberation from capitalism as it is a uniting point for various marginalized groups. However, it has shown to be just as useful to unite people against real change, distracting us to what the real issues are, to the point where we think the people who are really being oppressed are the bourgeois gays who live in the Castro. Identity politics has become a mask that hides from anyone who might have true radical sensibilities the actual conditions by which they are oppressed. It divides us and causes us to have to compete in ridiculous arguments about who has it worse. Even within gay communities, identity politics has divided people against eachother, as it forces people to argue about who, lesbians, gay men, transvestites, butch or feminine lesbians, unafgiliated/gender-ambiguous individuals, has it worse. Whenever we gear about whether a black man isn't black enough to represent blacks, were talking identity politics. It is an insidious and dispicable practice and it is what is destroying the lefts potency.

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There's a reason that the phrase "identity politics" is becoming universally loathed, and that's because the type of politics the phrase signifies is genuinely loathsome. Ideological hacks who pay lip service to justice and equality while doing nothing except pursue the narrow interests of their self-defined groups, often at the expense of entire peoples and movements, are neither progressive nor trustworthy, and are justly reviled by folks from all parts of the ideological spectrum. You're right in observing that white males engage in identity politics as well, and have long done so. But politics as usual is hardly the aim of people who are genuinely interested in justice for all.

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Love what you wrote.

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And one can make a defense for "Christians" voting for conmen like Bush and the huckster Huckabee! The problem is people tend to vote for only a few issues and miss the big picture. Voting for someone JUST because they are a woman, a southerner etc is no different than a fundamentalist voting for a stooge who claims to be pro-life, then screws the whole country economically.

Not that I can't appreciate identity politics at all. As a fat activist, I have been appalled by how ALL the major candidates are scapegoating obesity. Of course the reason for this is they have taken pharma money and weight obession is a major way billions get funneled from the middle class to the corporate elite. I wish more fat people would start connecting the dots and stop letting themselves be pushed around.

Still, identity politics and limited issue voting can be polorizing. We are facing too many environmental and economic crises and the social breakdown that accompanies them. If we don't unite soon we are lost!

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...in the best interests of their constituency.

Good policy (the elusive holy grail of politics) has zero to do with how many Y chromosomes one has, the density of melanin in their epithelial layer of tissue, or any other quality that unthinking people use to form their gut-feeling and base their judgment upon.

Supporting "identity politics" is lower one's standard of political reason all the down to an infant's perspective: visual cues.

Then again, with choices among Clinton, Obama, and McCain, it is entirely possible that we need an electorate that knows how to expertly throw a good hissy-fit.

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That covers all the bases and excludes no one.

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I agree wholeheartedly with the author of this article. Speaking from the perspective of a person concerned about how candidates stand on issues of identity- such as keep off my ovaries and why can't I marry anyone I want- as well as other issues concerning the envirnonment, the war, etc., I believe that it is important for so-called identity politics" to exists so long as the issues surrounding those various identities exist. For example, LGBT activists wouldn't be advocating anything if they had equal rights. People wouldn't be "playing the race card" (what a derisive expression)if racism wasn't prevalent.

The whole point about democracy is that we can and SHOULD express point out disparities and strive for general parity under the law- in general, we are ENCOURAGED by the Constitution to point out problems. That's why "identity politics" are a good thing, so keep hammering away, all my fellow activists!

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so..... a cyber space paper that is trying to present itself as progressive, liberal and/or democratic...printed an article on identity imaging -- argueing that since symbolism has always been used to influence us, the populace, and was always affective, that we, who are being shoved down a path that is harming the base of our beliefs and well being, should therefore, continue to find this form of simplistic and dangerous possturing acceptable in electing our next president. And, as proof of its acceptance, Alternet displayes a top and bottom ad SCREAMING....OBAMA GOES TO AFRICA -- this advertising surely is as effective and informative as a cowboy hat on Bush. -- or the health of the Marlboro man --

and speaks volumms for candidates and cyberspace opinion deseminator. It warns us that we are not safe trusting. I am greatly disappointed, in both the candidate and Alternet, America so desperately needed heros to step up to the plate.
In addition, I would like to comment that just a few days ago Alternet printed an article trying to project our love of JFK and our respect for Eissenhouer onto Obama.
WEll folks, lets get real. Eisenhouer speech about the dangers of the millitary industrial complex took courage -- but he told it to us as he closed the door -- leaving us holding the baggage. And JFK's speech of hope and change, "the torch has been passed to a new generation" and we joined our leader in a collective sigh of relief -- a new leader -- a new agenda -- and with hope in our collective hearts ... he marched us into Veitnam and was tricked into the Bay of Pigs.
We can still admire these men -- but we must be aware and carefully rethink the images that are shined into our eyes and the hope of our hearts. We have to look carefully at our position and point our vote on that.

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progressives can agree on justice for all without regard to "identity". Progressives can agree on usually agree on freedom from discrimination for all without regard to "identity". But sometimes there is a drift away from justice to "recognition", to mathematical formulas for equality under the law. Or there is the even stranger drift towards mandated cultural equality. What is a "hate crime" if not a "thought crime"? Should we punish thought crimes? And why gay marriage now, in the middle of a 30 year rightwing cultural and economic backlash? If Civic unions provide equality under law and therefore justice, why quibble about getting a signed marriage license? You can still get a sympathetic unitarian preacher to do the service even if you don't get the piece of paper. You can still have the party and the registration at Pottery Barn (or the Harley Davidson shop...)When the issue becomes recognition of special status or the almost infinitely divisible kinds of "oppression", some progressives are hesitant to endorse it. If I am not handsome, does that make me a victim of "looksism"?

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Well, I know I've recently read on "libertarian" blogs a term new to me, "sub-welfare," which must be a new pejoritve meaning "of low intelligence," "of low initiative," "of low socioeconomic status." And you can go all over the Internet and find rantings and ravings about Mexicans and Jews and African Americans and gays and lesbians and suburban, libertarian whites.

But really now people, aren't we all just f*ck-happy monkeys?

I mean, you throw David Duke and Oprah Winfrey on a desert island and it won't be all the long before you'll have little coffe-with-cream colored babies running around.

So, if we, the human race, can keep from destroying ourselves over the next ten or 12 years. Maybe, just maybe, we can pull our collective head out our collective ass and go back to being f*ck-happy monkeyes.

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While I understand what the author is trying to say, identity politics is a poison within progressive circles. I say this having spent most of the nineties working in the queer community and watching, time and time again, people who should be allies tearing one another apart because of identity politics. If I am doing some action do I do so as a black woman, or as a lesbian? Do my loyalties lie with the black community (where there is no small amount of homophobia) or with the queer (where there is no small amount of racism)? And that's just within me. I have sat in feminist circles and watched queer white women get torn apart by straight black women and then they, in turn, are torn apart by queer Latina women. All groups jockeying to have the moral high ground of being the most oppressed group in the room.

This is not a plea for 'can't we all just be people' because it *is* important to recognize that there are points of interest that, more or less, conform to being male or female, white or non-white, queer or straight. But we need to approach these things carefully because it is too easy to essentialize these things and it is nothing short of foolishness to pretend it doesn't happen.

Defending identity politics is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, not even wrong.

Cheers
LF

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You have got to be kidding me. I mean, April Fool's is still a ways away, but this is a joke, right?

Alternet, you are supposed to be printing substantive matter for people who are capable of critical thought. instead you post apologist trash like this to prop up the candidates you've been not so subtly backing throughout this entire campaign cycle?

Let me clue you in here: What is supposed to matter in Presidential election cycles are issues. It's not supposed to be Miss America, The Academy Awards, and American Idol all rolled into one.

This sort of garbage proves exactly how shallow America has become. How disappointing it is to realize that we have reduced ourselves to voting for people based on their skin color, their reproductive organs, and their charisma.

Finally, stop packaging Obama and Clinton as progressive candidates. Third way Democrats are much closer to Republicans than they are to the core beliefs of real progressives. Just because they get on stage and hypnotize the masses with their mantra of "Change" doesn't mean it's so. It means they have smart marketing people.

Quit shilling for the middle and do what you claim your goal is. Publish news for progressives.

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I think that the image that accompanies this article is a terrible choice. Why is it that queer movements have become the poster child for identity politics? How is it that they have hijacked the movements that once saught equality after centuries of SLAVERY, to complain that their sexual practices aren't accepted in everyday society? I completely support gay rights, but I have a lot of trouble believing that it's as bad for them as for somebody who, from 100 yards away, can be identified as a member of a particular race in a split second. The fact is that some of the most concentrated enclaves of queer culture in the US are also some of the richest, and even there, classism is very common. This is exactly what identity politics gets us. It makes us blind to the real economic oppression that exists in our country and diverts any substantial critique towards exclusionary movements.

It also jumps the gun as to what current issues face us when it comes to discrimination. When it comes to queer culture, they want people to be blind to their difference, entirely in principle. They want to be able to walk into a room, overtly queer, and have nobody bat an eye. Sure, there is same-sex marraige, employment discrimination, the military, etc. But most of all, there is the desire, in identity politics, to not be recognized as different. Paradoxically, their politics beg for them to recognized as different. But most of all, they're asking for a luxury that nobody really has. I could live with having people think I was a little weird when I walked into a room, if I at least had the money to pay my rent, keep my car maintained, and live a fulfilling life that isn't spent toiling just to get by. If some people didn't like me because of whatever "identity" category I belonged to, I could probably give a shit, because I have my own community of friends who don't judge me on those grounds. I think we need to realize that economic disparity is far more important than social acceptance by people you don't even know. Until we tackle that huge issue, that effects us all, no race, gender, religious, or other group is going to be any closer to equality.

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I'd have more respect for Jill Filipovic's commentary if along side it there was not a photo of a person holding a gay rainbow flag together with what I identify as a very "unprogressive" symbol of war and imperialism: the flag of the USA. But one supposes that Alternet is just trying to grab your attention.

The real problem lies in the phenomenon of "identity" itself, and not the in this as politics. It is basic philosophy that identity implies, presupposes difference and even potentially antagonism, and vice-versa. So for example, in the above, my political hostility to the flag of the USA implies a political identity as an anti-imperialist. But Jill Filipovic fails to assume any responsibility for this basic problem, or even recognize that it exists as such.

It is here, and not with "identity politics" per-se, that the problems arise with some of its practitioners, with the problems of needless "divisiveness", etc. Of course, everybody has the natural right to politicize their self-chosen identity - a right that extends, by the way, to the far and extreme Right, a group that is very much an avid practitioner of identity politics. After all, how else are we to "identify" our enemy?

Here is something to think about: what of the "identity" of capital, which disclaims any fixed identity, as potentially "anybody" can be a capitalist? Darn "progressive" sounding, ain't it? Next to capital, the advocacy of concrete particular "identity" seems downright "feudal" and antiquated!

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Of course, I'm not referring the Fascism or the New Nationalism of early 20th Century America. I mean that Identity is doing what nationalism did in the last two centuries to keep the Capitalist machine afloat: depoliticizing the economic.

A plea for identity politics is a plea for a politics without politics, what Freud called "a masochism of minor differences." 250 years ago, you could not conceive of people rallying behind one another because they share a skin-color or sexual-organ. It would be utterly inconceivable. What we are talking about is a politics of accessories, because identity in the sense that it is fought over now is a product of the Capitalist system.

The reason we have identity politics is because it is better for some very privileged people that we fight over that than the real business of the economy. In the same way, nationalism played into the hands of 19th and early-20th Century industrialists, who used such movements to divide and conquer.

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I am a progressive who believes this country needs a single payer health care system, an end to corporate welfare, fair trade policies, an end to the drug war as it unfairly affects poor low-level users, a repeal of NAFTA, an end to foriegn labor arbitrage, environmentally sustainable technology, a response to human caused global warming and a restoration of a bottom up economy where a progressive scale gives middle, lower and small business classes room to grow, while asking the upper classes to fund government according to their ability.

That's a pretty progressive resume and it applies to everyone, or at least the vast majority. The problem with identity politics, especially relating to the GLBTs, is that it focuses on a minority issue and loses sight of what would help EVERYONE and is needed NOW!

If this economy tanks and we're left with a depression era scenario, or worse, civil war, it won't matter how you identify yourself before the law if the law holds no control. If we in New York are underwater and methane is choking aerobic organisms, it won't matter if you're gay or straight. You're dead.

I realize that is the extreme, but with the amount of nonsensical chatter on the difference between civil unions and marriage during debates this year, a targeted response to Global Warming and the two-Americas issues of John Edwards were rarely, if ever, brought up. Gay marriage isn't solely responsible, but come on, why did it get more play than those pressing issues?

I feel more strongly about including ethnic and women's rights in the workplace than I do about GLBT issues. Ensuring respect and basic civil rights for all, including tolerance is important. But the rise of what the right has coined "the Gay Agenda" as part of "identity politics" has consumed public debate and issues affecting us all are thrown to the wayside.

Forgive me if I don't care about your joint tax return and life insurance benefits when my concern is whether I'll have a job and if my grandkids (should I decide to carry on my genes) get to live above sea level.

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...if it means pursuing your self-interest, that hardly needs emphasis. I say "hardly" because there are some who cannot identify their self-interest, and they do need to be educated.

But it's like admonishing people to love themselves. Yeah, there may be folks who have been so abused and confused that they believe they do not deserve better. No new-born has that problem. Children have the opposite problem. They need to be socialized and learn mutuality and limits.

So telling people to love themselves creates this generation of selfish, greedy, egocentric, pigs. And from what I read here of *identity* politics, it's just another form of self-interest.

What holds a democracy together is general interest groups; those working for the common good and the general welfare. That's what needs promotion. We cannot have people who just take. Our democracy needs people to give. Yes, first we need to learn whether we can afford to give. Or in our case, afford not to give--if we want a future of promise.

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Currently, a lot of lower- and working-class southerners vote Repug because the Dems don't offer them help for economic issues such as mortgage defaults and raising the minimum wage. Repugs don't help them either in this regard, but at least pay lip service to these uneducated, impoverished people's social views...so they get those votes.

Identity politics are a middle class preoccupation, and it's hard to build a national majority by catering only to this social class. People who have trouble feeding their kids have more immediate concerns.

Such problems are caused by structural problems within the American economy, and pitting small groups against each other won't make anyone richer. While identity groups whine and point fingers at each other, bankers, militarists and globalists pick everyone's pockets.

Progressives would get a lot more Americans on board by concentrating on practical economic concerns.

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The Differences Between Liberals and Progressives

Now there's your "identity politics."

Another Reminder: Not all Progressives will vote Democratic. An alarming number of them are anxiously awaiting Ralph Nader's presidential bid announcement. Deal with it ...

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Identity politics are as American as apple pie a