Identity politics

sIDENTITY POLITICS: FROM INCLUSION TO DIVISION

        Identity politics consist of taking a political position based on one’s interests and perspectives of social groups in which one identifies. In our modern world, the efficiency and relevancy of this idea is still dividing opinions and the four documents we have are exposing different aspects of what identity politics represent. It is then interesting to question the consequences of this principle for the political decisions and more generally to the society.

        First of all, the previous definition used to describe the notion is confirmed by the documents. The first article, from the July 6th, 2018 edition of The Economist states that the British Labour Party was originally founded to represent the working class even though the reality has changed over the years, for a majority of its partisans now consist of minorities such as Muslims or BAME for example. A parallel of this situation also exists in the United States (US). In her answer to Mark Lila’s op-ed “The End of Identity Liberalism”, the author of the second document, Katherine Franke, refers to it. As she relates her colleague’s position, we understand that people of color, gay and transgender as well as female are against Trump’s policies and that leads them to identify with the Democrats’ ideology.

        This supposes that identity politics should please everyone as each person should be able to identify with a party that corresponds to his needs. Yet these texts are proving that wrong. The Economist is for example exposing an internal conflict among the Labour: as representing the working class is no longer the priority of the party, manual workers complain that they are being set aside. This situation is due to the party’s growing numbers of influential members from the middle class with an educational background. Besides internal conflicts, this idea also leads to huge societal division. In the third document, an extract of Political Tribe - Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, the author Amy Chua explains that the notion of identity politics is a huge source of disagreement between the Democrats and Republicans. The Left indeed prevail this strategy to go against their opponents, who are having racist and homophobic attitude according to them. Conversely, the Rights blame the Democrats for focusing too much on identity and forgetting the other issues the country is facing. Ward Sutton’s illustration in The Boston Globe on September 1st, 2017 explicates this reproach through the man in the forefront claiming “Stupid Democrats… Identity politics is a loser!” 

Further than just creating disputes between political parties, this subject is actually ripping society apart. The context in which the second article has been written illustrates that, as the author is publicly responding to her colleague’s op-ed because of a disagreement on the utility of identity politics. As a matter of fact, her coworker believes that talking too much about diversity actually emphasizes difference between people. Instead, people should focus the original idea of citizenship. Katherine Franke disagrees: she thinks that this declaration is a White Supremacy partisan discourse. According to Amy Chua, both of them are in way right but also wrong and this discussion leads to questioning the idea of national identity. Owing to the growing number of immigrants, no group in America is nowadays dominant. Yet identity politics tend to enlighten the situation of groups that are considered as minorities which is against democratic values. At the end of the book extract, the author clearly specifies that racism goes against it but so does affirmative actions toward a specific group. Moreover, these actions are the reason why white people now feel marginalized and are seeking for their “heritage” or reclaim a “white pride” as it is shown in the drawing. The first article even reports a growing number of suicides among white men.

...