Adam Shine

Professor Dave Leaton
Self and Society
2019 October 4
Identity Politics
Who am I? That’s a question most people ask themselves if they’re unsure about their identity. Identity politics has been introduced in the 1960’s and it’s been a controversial topic ever since. Being open about trying to understand how people deal with this and how it’s interpreted through their eyes is key to make this controversial topic more comprehensible. Many authors have discussed this and the topic is still being discussed today. With identity politics, comes a tendency for people to move away from the conservative outlook and people react differently to this. Identity politics is a sensitive topic, identity politics is a out-of-the-norm topic, and identity politics is a topic that is here to stay.
Growing up in a conservative family, I really had no base knowledge of what identity politics actually was. I have a couple of family members who have questioned their identity and sexuality but how could I empathize with them? Then, one of my classmates in high school reached out to me to discuss their mindset on this and what they were going through. This classmate was a male and recently changed their gender to female. Her parents, from what was described to me, didn’t seem to be that thrilled about it. She grew up in a catholic family who went to church every sunday and even got confirmed in the Basilica in downtown Saint Louis. From a very young age she’s been battling with herself about who she is and she just wasn’t happy in the state she was in. She was telling me all of this information, on the verge of shedding tears, and I sat there with my ears open and my mind on the question of how to respond. Clearly she knew I had no base knowledge of this ever happening before or how to deal with it but she felt the need to share and get it off of her chest. But, she clearly also wanted to hear my perspective on things and how exactly I thought how she should handle it. Knowing her parents and how they are as humans, I told her there was no way she was going to get kicked and that there was no way they were going to stop supporting her. This was around Christmas time of 2017 so she was going to see both sides of her family and she was anxious of how they were going to handle it. I told her that her family would most definitely react shocked at first, but with time they were eventually going to have to accept her for how she is as a person and how this experience and the happy state she is with herself is the only way you can do about life. If you aren’t happy with who you are in your own skin, what’s the problem with changing your physical appearance to something that will make you comfortable for once in your life? This was my experience with identity politics and I cannot stomach the amount of stress this may cause onto another individual who deals with this everyday.
Mary Bernstein is apart of the department of sociology at the University of Connecticut and she first discusses the various approaches to define identity politics and the challenges amongst them. She shows that these approaches reflect competing theoretical understandings of the relationship between experience, culture, identity, politics, and power. This is a debatable topic and they raise theoretical issues that include how to understand the relationship between personal experience and political stance, why status identities are understood and/or portrayed as socially constructed, the dilemmas activists face when the identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppression, when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and how to link collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultural and political goals at which identity politics is aimed. Bernstein discusses these things and at the end she includes future reference of research for identity politics. This source presented strong, backed up information that displayed her strong understanding of the topic.
Unlike Bernstein in her novel, author Mary Eberstadt presented not just her base-knowledge but included perspectives from three other novelists. Eberstadt points out how millenials have become less obliged to have a firm sense of self. And to compensate for that, they team with the ideological tribes created by identity politics and react with “frenzy” against any perceived threat. This threat is often derived from the fact that people believe this ideologically is “impure”. Eberstadt imposes the question, “how did we get here?”, to refer to the state us humans have reached to get to the mindset of the unsure “who am I?”. Eberstadt argues the rise of identity politics stems from the collapse and shortage of families and is a direct result of the fallout of the sexual revolution. She illustrates that humans have forged their kinship from birth and the influence of family or “first teacher(s)” play a pivotal role in the set-and-stone mindset of becoming comfortable with who you are. All of the perspectives share one thing in common: empathy.
In Carolyn D’Cruz’s novel, she discusses how identity politics dominate the organisation of liberation movements in today’s society. Bringing up the totally “unthinkable” ideas but totally true experiences people face, she connects it all to being an “extremist” and “disconnected”. She includes how back in the day if you were questioning your sexuality, there would be a much different reaction back then, than there would be now. Eberstadt shares how this plays a role in today’s politics and how this could be pronounced as a “post modern culture” idea. If there is one thing for certain, it’s that this topic of identity politics isn’t going anywhere. This is heavily discussed everywhere throughout today’s politics because this is such a sensitive, renowned topic people struggle with everyday. Without discussion of the topic, there will be no progress moving forward. And with discussion of the topic, this is may be introduced to people who are unsure of who they are and cause them to act upon this.
The sensitivity of this subject will always be relevant and it will always be an out-of-the-norm topic for some people. Dating back to old traditions, this would be an unthinkable concept to try and convince them that this is a controversial we are going through in today’s society. Though it may be foreign to some people, it’s a living reality for others. Identity politics aren’t going anywhere and people will have different opinions and outlooks. In the end, asking “who am I?” may be the start of decided one should start to get more comfortable in their own skin.