Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.

[littlebabyjesus]

But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about..

I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice. But there is certainly a danger of campaign groups being coopted into the state structure in a way that supports it rather than challenging it, an obvious example being the corporate event that is Gay Pride nowadays.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

sorry Mr La Rouge - most of it. Maybe I'm just tired, will re read tomorrow.

I'm finding it all slow going too F.O.D. as I'm having to read each post for meaning and I'm not sure I've got them right

 

[Treacle Toes]

I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice. But there is certainly a danger of campaign groups being coopted into the state structure in a way that supports it rather than challenging it, the obvious example being the corporate event that is Gay Pride nowadays.

But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.

 

[DotCommunist]

some of the the noises coming from left (or at least some of the the white, straight male bits of it) seem to be saying that those pesky minorities should just shut up.

literally no one has said this. Why would you say that? Can we have quotes and examples rather than feels or seems please?

I'm started to be reminded of 'berniebros' type chat for some reason and I thought this conversation was doing better than that.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I chose that as an example because the oppression linked to identity is crystal clear and as good as inescapable for the hypothetical girl. Leaving the sexism she would experience aside for a moment, this hypothetical girl whilst forming her identity will inevitably have her politicised 'Oppressed-Palestinian' identity marked on her, whether she wants it or not. She cant choose not to have it.

The example you gave that an identity politics response necessarily = something like getting a Palestinian into an elevated business position <<<<is a very specific and shit thing. Thats not the way I understand identity politics though. If a Palestinian worked effortlessly to stop illegal settlements in what they understood to be Palestinian lands, that would fall under identity politics. It doesn't in anyway require thinking about larger social structure. Its still justified.

Fighting for token positions within capitalism is shit, clearly. But thats a complaint about something else. The goals maybe smaller than smashing capitalism, but there are fights there that still need fighting.


What I take from that piece is theres nothing wrong with "identity politics" per se - it was good and important in the 60s he seems to suggest, as it ran concurrently and overlapping with a wider struggle. Whats fucked is that the wider universalist liberation politics Malik talks about has faded and so this is all thats left, and within that vacuum it becomes problematic.

But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.

To me the problem with the attack on identity politics is it seems to blame those already experiencing oppression beyond/additional to their class oppression for not doing something about The Grand Injustice of the Superstructure. Somehow being selfish and wrapped up in their own problems. Thats how it comes across. And usually the people complaining about it are not experiencing these particular oppressions themselves.

Thank you for this clarity (edit)

 

[Treacle Toes]

literally no one has said this. Why would you say that? Can we have quotes and examples rather than feels or seems please?

I'm started to be reminded of 'berniebros' type chat for some reason and I thought this conversation was doing better than that.

Are we only allowed to reflect on things that are posted on this thread then? Or can we also bring in our wider experiences? The Op wouldn't exist without wider context and experiences Dotty.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.

I'm sure there is. I like Red Cat's point that none of this stuff is static and it's right to think of much of it as constantly contested ground. Idris's point about brokerage is a key one, I think, and the more I think about it, the more I think it's relevant to today's Britain because it is precisely the project begun by Blair/Brown - the attempt to coopt or create identity groups into the state structure as form of control and to make division formalised and permanent.

 

[DotCommunist]

Only we only allowed to reflect on things that are posted on this thread then? Or can we also bring in our wider experiences? The Op wouldn't exist without wider context and experiences Dotty.

Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.

Yeah, on this particular thread, it would be useful to respond to the ideas of the thread, I would have thought, especially given danny's long OP.

/thread cop

 

[Treacle Toes]

Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.

I know what you mean. There is lots of vague talk about id politiickers and their toxicity around here of late... Can't remember when I last saw an actual example of anyone being that 'guy' though.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Not sure anything's eluding you. Class is a tricky one as it's certainly fluid for a person through their lifetime, or can be. My take on that is that for political discussion, it's important not to think of, say, Alan Sugar as working class. That he has a working class background would be a better way to describe him, which is frankly irrelevant when considering his role and that of the class to which he now belongs in the workings of economies. Going the other way around, I used to have a neighbour, fifty-something, skint, with drink problem and some MH issues, just about getting by in a council flat, who spoke kind of posh and went to a private school. He had a middle-class or upper-middle-class background, but that certainly wasn't his status by the time I knew him.

Defining class is another huge can of worms. God help me I more or less agree with phildwyer on this one in that today, many people have a mixed relationship with the means of production, being to some extent both workers and bourgeois with potential for income from owning stuff. Easiest and clearest way to work out your economic class is to have a look at your bank account and see how much comes in every month, plus add-ons like stuff you own, stuff you might inherit, and social capital like education status or who you know.

Can of worms indeed. If someone is earning money from property then they're perhaps more bourgeois than they'd care to think, if they merely own property then that isn't really an indicator. Anyway this discussion is way off topic for a thread about identities and organising around that.

 

[seventh bullet]

That crams a lot into a short space. What evidence is there that 'the communist party wanted as many supporters as possible, even if it meant having blacks'? In the 1920s and 30s, there was support for various black activists in the States from the Soviet Union, as I understand it because they saw black Americans as those who would drive a revolution there. Not as an add-on, but at the core.
What Happened to the Dream of a "Separate Negro State" in America?

That article doesn't include Communist Harry Haywood, who was also informed by Soviet-developed nationalities policy vis-a-vis 'socialism' within the USSR, and the late 1920s Comintern positions on self-determination in the colonial parts of the world and armed national liberation. He lived and studied with such revolutionaries when in Moscow. It also sees people as dumb and stupid, being hoodwinked by the Soviet Union.

 

[likesfish]

While ID an be a useful tactic dealing with a specific problem that effects a specific ID it should not be the only tool in the box.
If you see every problem through the lense of your specific ID then your going to come a cropper.
A bme/ lgbt/ feminist / approach to transport policy would be ridiculous

 

[chilango]

if as a (e.g) black worker who do you turn to for support at work? Your white co-workers or your black boss?

Trying to illustrate this simply...

 

[Treacle Toes]

Yeah, on this particular thread, it would be useful to respond to the ideas of the thread, I would have thought, especially given danny's long OP.

/thread cop

Danny's OP brought in a lot of aspects of the wider context and perspectives. He laid out his beliefs and provided context as he sees it.

Why can't we respond to that with personal examples, experiences etc? They are afterall how we make meaning of it all so they inform our beliefs.

Why are you policing the conversation in this way?

 

[Treacle Toes]

Trying to illustrate this simply...

It's pretty simple already. I suppose it depends on the point you are trying to make.

Is it:

1. You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?

ETA chilango

 

[mauvais]

Isn't the biggest threat of IDP akin to the old religious denominations bridge joke? i.e. that if the approach to every issue becomes primarily defined by your identity, it becomes increasingly difficult to work with people outside that group who would otherwise have a very high degree of commonality with you as regards that issue, indeed perhaps more significantly than in terms of the identity-centric element of that cause. Thus another very useful divide and conquer mechanism for authority.

Not that it is mutually exclusive from cooperation, just that it's probably a trap that's easily fallen into.

 

[emanymton]

i see nothing in Danny's OP that answers my question. If its clear to you and you also see this massive difference then please help me understand it. How is the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity different from a manifestation of identity politics in her? What is the difference? I really don't see one.

I don't believe that all forms of resistance to a particular oppression, are necessarily identity politics. Rather identify politics is a particular way of conceptualising and engaging in resistance. I think the precise nature of the distinction between identity politics and other forms of resistance, and whether identity politics is even an effective form of resistance is part of what this thread is about.

For my part one aspect of identity politics I dislike is the fetishism of difference. It focuses on what divides rather than unites us.

This is why I don't like the talk of allies. I don't see myself as an ally of black people fighting rascsim, as that implies I am somehow outside their struggle. But their struggle is my struggle. Anything that moves society in a more equal, fair and just direction benefits us all. Obviously black people will benefit far more and more directly, but their struggle is not separate from mine.

 

[seventh bullet]

Can we have less of this?

I feel..

It seems...

It appears...

And when pressed, nothing.

Repeat a few posts later.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

in response to some of the above, no i'm not going to turn this into a call-out thread

 

[LDC]

And for many identity politics people that do consider themselves revolutionaries the concept they have of what a revolutionary outlook, structure, and struggle look like is one of lumping all these groups together to form a 'movement', rather than something entirely different. Similar to activists where a 'movement' is often taken to mean just gathering all the single issues together.

 

[Athos]

It's pretty simple already. I suppose it depends on the point you are trying to make.

Is it:

1. You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?

I'm not speaking for Chilango, and, as it happens, I don't think it's very helpful to simplify to that extent.

But, I see it as more like: by always looking to your boss just because he's black, you'll undermine solidarity with your fellow workers such that you'll never move beyond the circumstances that are the cause of your oppression, including the specific oppression you experience because of your race (since racism serves the interests of ruling class).

Importantly, that's not the same as recognising that, in the immediate term, some aspects of your interests align with your boss's such that you might achieve some gains from working together.

I think sometimes we misunderstand (to the point of caricaturing) each other. Some exponents of ID politics seen to believe that critics require them to suffer in silence and overlook the importance of fighting race, sex, etc. discrimination; whereas, maybe some of the critics are too hasty to dismiss as ID politics things which aren't.

To some extent, the left must take some blame for that; it's failure to listen to the experiences of minorities created the conditions for ID pol to thrive. But, equally, I wonder if you'd agree that some of the polarisation has arisen from the practices (as much as the ideological basis) of ID politics e.g. decisively emphasising difference where it's not necessary, and making spurious claims to authority on the basis that experience should trump reason?

I know you've not been talking to me recently, but I hope you see this post as a genuine attempt to understand and be understood.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.

Yes because some people in the LBGTQ+ community have identitypolitics and some don’t.

This is exactly the point. Andrew Boff is a gay Tory. Nicky Crane was a (closeted) gay Nazi. I’ve got friends who are gay anarchists, etc.

So there isn’t a single gay politics, a politics which is genetically welded to you because of your sexuality.

 

[Red Cat]

I have to go to work now but I think it would be great if we could continue to struggle on this thread with understanding the different viewpoints and to move beyond the stuckness that has been here lately.

 

[redsquirrel]

When would you date it from, civil rights movement?

Late to it but what danny said - last 30 years or so. I don't disagree that ethnicity etc have been used as a political for far longer than that but the identity politics than danny talked about in the OP, one that is bound up with multiculturalisms is a recent thing.

 

[mauvais]

This is why I don't like the talk of allies. I don't see myself as an ally of black people fighting rascsim, as that implies I am somehow outside their struggle. But their struggle is my struggle. Anything that moves society in a more equal, fair and just direction benefits us all. Obviously black people will benefit far more and more directly, but their struggle is not separate from mine.

On the other hand, counter to this idea of IDP being unnecessarily divisive, how do you avoid co-option, ownership and dilution of a cause? So to give a possibly unhelpful example, a black-led BLM turning into some primarily white-led 'all lives matter' thing through the integration of all comers? Is that acceptable or positive?

If you take any one type of oppression, as you already indicate, there's a spectrum in terms of the effect on individual people's lives that runs from severe & tangible detriment through to intangible big political picture stuff, and even potentially into deriving benefits from that oppression, intentionally or not. So why do you not need to recognise a parallel spectrum of organisation that includes allies, accomplices and even unwitting enemies?

 

[LDC]

Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.

The wider universal liberatory project isn't currently enough I agree.

But this isn't a mistake or something that's 'just happened', it's partly due to the form of identity politics taking its place in some ways. And this hasn't happened in some neutral vacuum, it's been encouraged by capital and complicit members of the left.

I think you're also creating a bit of a straw man case there, not sure anybody has said those examples (homophobia/police prejudice) you give are 'bad' per se, but limited and sometimes problematic (depending on what they do) if you're coming from a wider revolutionary perspective.

What the fuck is all this talk about fault too? That's one of my bugbears, loads of people in the identity politics scene are basically moralists.

 

[redsquirrel]

Always (ALWAYS!) it's the people suffering alongside you in that particular manner who are keenest to the needs of the situation, most willing to take action, and best placed to help create a culture of change that's effective in the here and now, not just some theoretical future.

I'm sorry but not only this quite clearly false (you really think the WEP are the best placed to help create a culture of change w.r.t. sexism - give me a break) it also attacks the idea of solidarity - that an attack on one is an attack on all.

You say "but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall", I think you should watch this. 'Lefty' organisations did take up the fight for gay rights - yes they were too slow about it - but they did fight and fight because of solidarity.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Yes because some people in the LBGTQ+ community have identitypolitics and some don’t.

This is exactly the point. Andrew Boff is a gay Tory. Nicky Crane was a (closeted) gay Nazi. I’ve got friends who are gay anarchists, etc.

So there isn’t a single gay politics, a politics which is genetically welded to you because of your sexuality.

I know which is why I made the point I did.

 

[LDC]

I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice.

No it very definitely isn't, and it's dishonest for people to paint it as such.