Joey Keane 

Professor Leaton

Self and Society 

4 October 2019

Identity politics can be viewed in many different ways. I see it as how people arange their views on race, religion, ethnicity, sex, culture, or really just any type of identity you can think of. The political part comes from the alliances people form with groups to promote what they believe without caring about how others may feel or think about it. I believe that people get judged off of their identity, their race, their beliefs, and your experiences in life. 

I can say that I have seen a lot of identity politics growing up. I grew up going to Christian schools where people would always talk about why other religions were bad, or why there should only be two sexualities and beliefs in that category. Throughout high school my best friend really struggled. He grew up with a terrible father figure and his parents finally divorced our junior year. He was facing a ton of questions about his religious and sexual beliefs. Senior year he finally came out to the world as gay and really took a lot of hate from it. I had to sit back and watch a friend that I completely supported, knowing that he was going through a confused point in his life, getting bullied and made fun of for how he felt and for just being himself. Not only were students being hard on him, but the school as a whole. Administration would question if he should be allowed to go to school where his beliefs and their beliefs did not line up. 

Secondly, after reading an article written by Carlos Lozada I see that tons of people struggle with similar things. People are constantly being judged by their skin color, their beliefs, where they came from, ect. In the article Carlos writes,  

     “I’m Catholic, and these days that’s hard. I’m an immigrant, though it wasn’t my   

     choice. I’m now a citizen, even if it took a few decades to commit. I’m a husband and 

     father struggling to make more time. I’m Hispanic, but perplexed by the label. I’m a

     registered independent, because it was easier than choosing. I’m a journalist, yet I 

     never wrote for the student paper. And I’m a college football fan sacked by guilt”  

     (Lozada).

Reading what Carlos has to say we really do see the wrath and truth about identity politics. We see our urge to notice people’s race, gender, background, ethnicity, or any identity is just natural for us as humans. We notice how much we really do judge people based off of their looks and why they are the person they are. We as people in a fallen world jump to conclusions when we see other people that do not look the same as us.

Thirdly, in another article about how identity politics has divided the left, they interview Rashmee Kumar and she states that, “The framework of identity reduces politics to who you are as an individual and gaining recognition as an individual, rather than your membership in a collectivity and the collective struggle against an oppressive social structure,” Haider writes. “As a result, identity politics paradoxically ends up reinforcing the very norms it set out to criticize” (Kumar). I think she does a great job of saying that the norms in our society today is to do whatever it takes to make ourselves look good in other people’s eyes. No one really cares what they have to do, but they will do anything to make sure they look good. Later in the article it says, “identity politics started with a group of black lesbian socialist feminists who recognized the need for their own autonomous politics as they confronted racism in the women’s movement, sexism in the black liberation movement, and class reductionism. Centering how economic, gender, and racial oppression materialized simultaneously in their lives was the key to their emancipatory politics. But their political work didn’t end there. The women of Combahee advocated for building coalitions in solidarity with other progressive groups in order to eradicate all oppression, while foregrounding their own.” This group of women rooted identity into people and what it meant to have a purpose and matter, and we have steered very far away from what they set into place and tried to do for our society. 

Lastly, Michelle Gao explains the reasons that he used to believe in identity politics by stating that, “ it told me: You and your experience matter. Your identity gives you authority. Your beliefs can’t be invalidated because your identity can’t be invalidated. This logical leap was empowering to take” (Gao). He believed strongly about all these things, but identity politics have changed drastically over the years. he believed that our experiences do matter, and that we can gain authority and power by what we believe in. Later in his article Michelle says, “Identity politics makes people feel better about themselves at the expense of productive discourse. A person’s lived experience should never be invalidated. But no identity makes the beliefs that someone derives from their lived experience automatically more correct” (Gao). With this being said he stopped believing in the importance of identity politics because people just use it to help  themselves and promote what they want people to believe, and make others think more highly of them. People believe that because of experiences they have gone through they can be more credible and makes them more right.

After looking at personal experiences, and different views on how identity politics has been developed and changed over time I am going to say that I lean away from it. I do not stand for people believing in something just to help them feel better about their beliefs and themselves. Yes an identity might give you authority, but does that even matter if your identity does not matter or have relevance? People need to learn to look past their own beliefs and others beliefs and just love people for who they really are. 

 

Kumar Kashmee, 27 May 2018, How Identity Politics Has Divided The Left, https://theintercept.com/2018/05/27/identity-politics-book-asad-haider/

Lozada, Carlos, 18 October 2018, Show Me Your Identification, whttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2018/10/18/feature/identity-politics-may-divide-us-but-ultimately-we-cant-unite-without-it/

Gao, Michelle, 24 January 2018, Why I Don’t Support Identity Politics Anymore, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/1/24/gao-identity-politics/