I hear a lot about identity politics, and how bad it is. But, I don't know WHAT it is. Do you?

What is being criticized here is a particular political style, rather than a theoretical orientation - a style which labels as oppressive any deviation from a particular political line, which resorts almost immediately to public denunciation and exclusion, and which entails analytical and categorical rigidity, with corresponding boundary-policing. They can be distinguished from those whose approaches pursue open-ended becomings through the deconstruction of identity-categories (eg Heckert), which are minoritarian becomings rather than minority identities.

IPs see one axis of oppression as primary - the principal contradiction[3] They demand that everyone focus on this axis. If someone fails to do so, IPs label them racist, sexist, white supremacist, patriarchal, etc. Ditto if they refuse leadership by the oppressed group (often meaning the IPs themselves), deviate from the IP’s proposed political line, or criticise an IP. Such terms are deployed only by a member of the correct group, and are used to silence criticism - in the case of Patriarchy Haters, even the word violence is monopolised; those who oppose them “do not get to decide what counts as violence” (Voline). The idea of a principal contradiction leads to contempt for other issues and priorities. For instance, IPs in APOC, who focus on race, argue that “bleating about gender and class” is an instance of “diversionary tactics” to deflect from race (Anon, Open Letter). Early CWS work treated issues other than racism as “dis- tractions” (Dot Matrix), and Lorenzo Ervin demands that “anti-racism/anti-colonialism” be made “the core concern” of every activist group (315). He also dismisses anything outside his own agenda - from climate change to anti-fascism - as a “white rights” issue (133, 290, 302).

This political style boundary-polices identities in a way which renders them rigid and authoritarian. In many cases, fighting alleged racism or sexism inside radical groups is seen as the most important issue in radical politics - more important than fighting racism/sexism in the wider society. Ervin calls white radicals the worst kinds of racists, worse than hardcore conservatives (240, 272-3). Usually, these attacks take the form of militant struggle from the Maoist milieu: public denunciation and/or disruption, criticism/self-criticism, purging/ exclusion, and the policing of micro-oppressions within the movement or scene; activists refuse to draw distinctions between allies and sympathisers, active enemies, and anything in-between. Ostracism, “the ultimate form of social control,” “is very infrequently used” in indigenous cultures (Peaceful Societies), but is used almost immediately by IPs for the smallest perceived transgressions.

Ervin’s repeated tirades against white anarchists provide a textbook case of this approach; his recent antics include labelling the entire Anarchist Black Cross racist because, at their recent convention in Denver, someone - at the request of Black political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim - read aloud a racist letter by a prison guard. Roger White’s Post Colonial Anarchism exemplifies this too, as do the faction of APOC who disrupted the Crimethlnc convergence in Philadelphia in 2009, verbally abusing participants and damaging their belongings. Kill Whitey, one ofthe cheerleaders for this attack, later extended the disruptors’ accusations of“white supremacy” to Food Not Bombs and other anarchist groups, demanding that all such groups accept black leadership. The attack by activists from the Qilombo social centre on the CAL Press table at the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair in 2014 is another case; subsequent comments online by Qilombo supporters clearly show the same rhetoric. Patriarchy Haters, the group which emerged from the Patriarchy and the Movement event in Portland, represent a feminist variant; their most notorious intervention was to shout down Kristian Williams at an unrelated event for criticising their political style in his article, The Politics of Denunciation.

Identity and Spectres:

From a Stirnerian anarchist perspective, at the root of the problem with IPs is the spectre - the use of an identity-category as a transcendent, abstract category which possesses and defines values. In Stirner’s theory, the problem of oppression is the problem that people value spectres and the things which benefit spectres - instead of valuing the things which they desire as a “unique one.” All categories, words, concepts, can become spectres if they are allowed to possess and dominate us - even those which refer to our properties or attributes (59, 151). If people are defined as essentially and primarily something - whether it be humanity, whiteness, blackness, masculinity, femininity - this is always alienating, because the category is always “his essence and not he himself,” and therefore something alien (28), which requires “my valuelessness” (145). As a real person, each of us is a processual being, an embodied self, located in a field of becoming.


https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lupus-dragonowl-against-identity-politics

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rod-dubey-cultural-appropriation-shaming

My own personal experiences include when I talk about being upset at the injustices of the religious police towards Muslim females and well people in general... for locking women up for showing wrist skin or Christians for reading the bible in public.. I get comments like: YEW MEANIE UR A RACIST! Granted I'm not the nicest person when I'm upset by something and I could probably be a lot nicer but come on.... I don't feel like I SHOULD be nice to those sorts of people.. they haven't earned that right for me. That's identity politics. That's people willing to ONLY look at that particular group no matter what they.. special interest groups can do no wrong.

Especially if you are white. White male = bad but everyone else good unless you are a white woman or rich.. if you are a black republican especially = bad but everyone else is just great. If you are black and conservative though... you race traitor you.. you must be stupid or ignorant... we know what's best for YOU don't we understand that you know what is best for us.. and if you are apart of any other political group except mine.. you are a bad and evil person. That's identity politics on steroids.

Usually when people start arguing with me in that manner I say: I don't do identity politics which roughly translates to please debate actually but seriously don't make the issues into "black and white" I don't like arguing with a wall.

Think about that in such thing like public schools *shudders.

Banning Shakespeare because he was a white dude for instance and banning books generally because of some race or they don't get the "moral" of the actual story itself.. and are too lazy to teach that moral to people.. just because of the race of the author or whatever is identity politics.

And you are right it's other groups that have identity politics as well. Christians for instance. But I am not sure if it could be called identity politics or religious indoctrination. I don't know if that is a different set of factors or not. Good for debate though.

I get the same type of comments when I casually point out the connection between third worlds and the policies Catholics impose on those countries (linked to overpopulation and poverty.) And it isn't Catholics themselves.. it's just the system I have an issue with as a whole. Like I don't care if you don't believe in birth control.. but I do care if you impose it on countries that don't have the best educational resources. I also don't appreciate this mass stereotyping of witches leading to modern day witch hunts that in turn leaves African children disfigured because of radical sects that break off and convince these children's parents that the child is in fact the one to blame. That crap irks me like from the bottom of my heart.

It's actually quite simple.

When THEY do it, it's "identity politics" or "playing the race card."

When WE do it, it's "appealing to the base" or "elevating underrepresented groups."

This post was edited by Just Asking at December 25, 2016 12:05 PM MST

Identify politics is anytime you group people together by race, sex, orientation, economic class etc.... saying this group should vote this way or that way. Assuming that all of that group votes that way. And often times attempting to shame members of the group who vote contrary to the "group think" of the others.  ie Black Republican, ProLife Woman, poor Republican, Pro Gun Dem....

Instead of voting on policy positions.  This post was edited by my2cents at December 25, 2016 8:53 PM MST