Identity Politics

When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life (didn't we all?). It was Todd Gitlin's The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars. The book is about identity politics and how, because the American capital-L Left is so busy being concerned with the constellation of cause of import to the individuals within it, liberal causes lose to conservative ones all the time.

After a turbulent four years at a liberal arts institution where the liberal was as important as the arts, reading the the book my senior year was like having a billion light bulbs going off in my head. I had been both the victim and the perpetrator of identity politics-related campus trifles. When you're 19 and someone whom you consider to be on your side rips your head off for something you don't understand . . . Well, let's just say the petty internet squabbles you see springing up everywhere are nothing compared to the indignation.

But Gitlin laid it out pretty clear. Sadly, I'm writing this at home and my copy of the text is at school, so I can't pull out the relevant quotes. But suffice it to say, Gitlin bemoaned the slide from "all politics is local" to "only the local is political." And, as one who, as I said, was both victim and perpetrator of the provincial, I finally had, I thought, a language to try to unify all of us on the campus left (there was very little campus right) who were, after all, on the same side.

And I still think that, especially in times like these, there are moments when identity politics must be subordinated to a greater goal. In this case, the election of (yawn) John Kerry and as many Democrats as possible to Congress. But identity politics is not something that goes away quietly, or hardly ever.

I was reminded just recently that identity politics is a bugaboo. Over at my occasional home Open Source Politics, Joe Taylor (who posts here as both himself and Redeye, and is the proprietor of Redey's corner) took issue yesterday with something fellow OSPer P6 said: Turns out, P6 is not only black, but a self-described "black partisan." Joe, who is white, finds that tantamount to racism. He writes,

The concept of a black identity is as racist as [that] of a white identity. Blacks aren't different from whites in mental and physical capabilities, unless one counts the fact that blacks are more resistant to sunburn. A racial identity has to be manufactured and exclusive and contradicts reality, regardless of the race or ethnic group involved.

I have to admit that I've also been reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, which is all about the evolutionary and social constructs of culture and cultural identity. While a lot of the people who read Gitlin find Pinker and his evolutionary psychology ilk to be a threat: If there are evolutionary reasons for the way we act, then the whole theory that personality and culture is socially constructed goes out the window. Pinker, of course, splits the difference: There is an evolutionarily defined structure to the brain, but where and when we are born still plays a large role in who we are.

Anyway, back to Joe: He notes that "a racial identity has to be manufactured." P6's whole point is that there is a body of culture to be proud of for himself, an identity that places him on a continuum of culture that he can embrace and call his own. P6's latest post at OSP covers exactly that.

It is also important to note that for minorities, women, and gays and lesbians (among other groups prone to "identity politics"), taking the time to discover and celebrate the identity that your group has as a group is vital.

I'm reminded of a passage from James Baldwin that I use with my seniors:

I know, in any case, that the most critical time in my own development came when I was forced to realize that I was a kind of bastard of the West; when I followed the line of my past I did not find myself in Europe but in Africa. And this meant that in some subtle way, in a really profound way, I brought to Shakespeare, Bach, Rembrandt, to the stones of Paris, to the cathedral at Chartres, and to the Empire State Building, a special attitude. These were not really my creations, they did not contain my history; I might search in vain forever for any reflection of myself. I was an interloper; this was not my heritage. At the same time I had no other heritage which I could possibly hope to use--I had certainly been unfitted for the jungle or the tribe. I would have to appropriate these white centuries, I would have to make them mine--I would have to accept my special attitude, my special place in this scheme--otherwise I would have no place in any scheme. What was the most difficult was the fact that I was forced to admit something I had always hidden from myself, which the American Negro has had to hide from himslef as the price of his public progress; that I hated and feared white people. This did not mean that I loved black people; on the contrary, I despised them, possibly because they failed to produce Rembrandt. In effect, I hated and feared the world.[emphasis mine]

In other words, Baldwin--and others, like P6--have a choice: They can either accept their place in a white world, or they can accept that they have no place in any world. Or, the third way, the one P6 has chosen: They can celebrate their own world. This is not a choice Joe Taylor will ever have to make. This is what, in a roundabout way, I have been arguing with Joe about in the comments thread to that initial post: Joe is suffering from the opposite of White Man's Guilt (again to borrow from Baldiwn). That's White Privilege.

Joe actually asks in the comments to P6's post linked to above, "So you're proud of things you had no involvement with?," as if it is impossible for him to conceive that the great achievements in African American culture P6 lists--from WEB DuBois to Langston Hughes to Malcolm X--could bring anyone a sense of pride.

Poor Joe, as a victim of White Privilege, doesn't see the need for P6 (and, by extension, James Baldwin?) to find those things to be proud of. I don't know--Joe hasn't gone there yet--if Joe wants us all to be proud of everything, or if he wants us to wait and only take pride in the things we ourselves do. Either argument, as it turns out, would suit Joe, our White Privilege victim, since, as a straight, white man, the whole of that Western Civilization is Joe's culture. Everything that James Baldwin found to hate about himself is everything that Joe, by accident of birth, is privileged to have.

Being a victim of White Privilege means never having to acknowledge that you have it. Also, it means never even having to acknowledge that you're white. "Ask me what race I am," Joe writes in his first post, "and I'll tell you that unfortunately, I'm human." Straight, white, and male is the default in this country. When we talk about an American culture, it's ours (I am, after all, straight, white, and male). It is only in reference to those other groups--the identity politics groups Gitlin wants to unify and Pinker wants to explain--that we have to begin applying prefixes to. It is within the accomplishments of the culture that members of that group can begin to construct an identity outside of the identity that people like me and Joe are born into.

Ironically, I've found that recognizing that privilege is an important step toward a building a personal liberal politics that actively solicits and involves other identity groups. Joe is a good guy--after all, I think he's basically playing on the same team that I am--and someday he'll begin to figure it out, too.

We may never reach the day when we are a colorblind society (and beware those seeking an end to affirmative action in the name of colorblindness), but if we can all finally become color-aware, including aware of our own color, Joe, which isn't "human," then we will be well on the way toward building a coalition on the left that can stomp the Jebo-fascists but good.

[A note to any and all conservative/ Republican readers, new to my place through Iron Blog, I should point out that I call Joe a "victim" of White Privilege only to the extent that his blinders make him say idiotic things. And if this talk of identity politics confuses and confounds you, just consider it your average, everyday leftist infighting, and move along. Nothing more to see here . . .

Oh, and Feministe makes the blogroll

UPDATED with the Baldwin quote I was thinking of.]