CommentsGUEST COMMENTARY - As we enter yet another political season where we continue to witness alarming polarization and seemingly no unifying themes, it is disheartening to see the United States disintegrate further into “us and them” rhetoric.
Liberal Democrats are accused of being too focused on “identity politics”—advocating for women, people of color, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community—while neglecting themes that would appeal to everyone, in particular, working-class whites. Conservative Republicans are charged with not caring about the groups that Democrats are more apt to advocate for, and even attempting to pass legislation that would set back progress that has been made over the past 100 years or so, around topics like abortion and immigration rights.
So, what is identity politics anyway? The dictionary defines identity politics as “a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.” In response, I would ask: what is “traditional broad-based party politics”? I can only interpret that phrase to mean the politics of those who have traditionally been in power, which, by definition, excludes people of color, the LGBTQ community, women, and others.
We are a nation of identities, and from my worldview, the Constitution of this country was in fact built on identity politics. In the original Constitution, 3 of every 5 slaves were counted in the population for purposes of voting; this was the case until 1866 when the 14th Amendment repealed this law. Women were denied the vote until 1920; Native Americans were stripped of their land by the United States government… I could go on with other examples of how identity was, and is, the main issue for key voting and Supreme Court decisions. And isn’t lobbying a form of identity politics and a hallmark of our political system? So yes, identity politics is “a thing” and has been since the United States came into being. It seems that it only became something “bad” or “negative” when associated with historically marginalized, underrepresented, and discriminated against groups such as people of color, women, religions other than Christianity, the LGBTQ community, etc.
I strongly object to the dictionary definition of identity politics as “people of a particular religion, race, social background moving away from traditional broad-based party politics….” I counter that these “particular” people are actually trying to move towards “a more perfect union”—one in which everyone is included, where there is equity, and a broad definition of “traditional.”
To me the issue is not whether Identity politics should exist—because they do and they always will. History has taken care of that. The key concern for me is that identity politics not be labeled as only pertaining to historically marginalized groups and used as a means of minimizing their issues. Donald Trump absolutely ran on a platform of identity politics: from immigration (“Mexicans are rapists”) to religion (“Muslims are terrorists”) to taking credit for low unemployment rates for African Americans. Politics is clearly identity based. Yet, for some reason, Trump’s supporters do not talk about these racist views as identity politics. What about farmers? The Teamsters? The NRA? Do these not constitute identity groups? Are they associated with identity politics? The white working class is clearly a defined identity group, but they are portrayed as the victim in the identity politics debate.
Opponents of identity politics as it is defined above use The Civil Rights movement to defend their position, citing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of unity and the Golden Rule. These pundits say that we should focus on what is good for all of us and seem to feel that those who advocate for their own identity group exclude and or dismiss the concerns of any other groups. This argument was made during the last presidential election when some experts claimed that Hillary Clinton lost because she was too focused on historically marginalized groups and ignored the white working class. I think that there was a lot more that factored into her loss, and for this post, I will just leave it at that.
(Mary-Frances Winters, president and founder of The Winters Group, Inc. is a master strategist with over 30 years experience in strategic planning, change management, diversity, organization development, training and facilitation, systems thinking and qualitative and quantitative research methods. She has extensive experience in working with senior leadership teams to drive organizational change. Described by clients as highly creative, collaborative, visionary and results oriented, she is a sought after keynote speaker and workshop leader.)
