We need identity politics
Ron DeSantis recently commented that some American black people benefitted from slavery by learning trades such as blacksmithing.
This is why we need identity politics: there's always a racist, sexist, anti-gay politician looking to chip away at what the rest of us know is true. They don't do this in acts that establish regression wholesale. They do it one snarky comment at a time. They do it through dog whistles couched in appeals to protect our children from the evils of progressivism.
This is where the battle is: in these attempts to advance bigotry subtly, in small steps. This is where we have to meet it: in public condemnations, standing up for identities that are under fire. Since these attacks are on-going, the answer to them must be, ideally from representatives of those identities.
This is why we need identity politics: there's always a racist, sexist, anti-gay politician looking to chip away at what the rest of us know is true. They don't do this in acts that establish regression wholesale. They do it one snarky comment at a time. They do it through dog whistles couched in appeals to protect our children from the evils of progressivism.
This is where the battle is: in these attempts to advance bigotry subtly, in small steps. This is where we have to meet it: in public condemnations, standing up for identities that are under fire. Since these attacks are on-going, the answer to them must be, ideally from representatives of those identities.
Comments (29)
Yea - as long as sympathizers who also have other interests are not excluded. That's the danger of narrowly defined political factions: there is so much more to the administration, infrastructure and policing of a society than identities. It's not reasonable to assume that someone who opposes racism also opposes tax incentives for business, or someone who identifies as Native American cannot also be prejudiced in matters of gender.
Political collectives need policy platforms more comprehensive than the interest of a readily identifiable social identity.
I think they usually do. My point is that in the present political climate, specific identities are under attack by what's quickly becoming mainstream conservativsm. The response also needs to be specific. If that means progressives are divided by focus, that's ok. I don't think they're really divided in spirit, are they?
I think they paid for it already. If DeSanity will contract to be my slave along with a few generations of his descendants I'll teach him whole bunch of shit.
I think that's the primary goal of supporting an identity. Whatever DeSantis' goals may be, I think the effect of his brand of politics is acceptance of bigotry. Groups focused on identity are struggling for the opposite: inclusivity with regard to rights.
I'm sure he'd appreciate that.
I think its a stretch to that because slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit, that they benefited from slavery as a whole. Clearly thats not what they were saying. The question should be whether it is true or false.
Desantis himself reiterated the claim and basically said youll have to talk to the scholars or education board about that. In the video below the scholar (a black man) said it was true.
He's a politician. It's totally appropriate to ask why he's asserting P at time T.
What do you think his motive is?
I don't think a divided left can prevail - either on the communications or in the legislature.
I'm not so sure about the spirit. The progressive, liberal and socialist parties have moved increasingly centerward, as the right pulled ever farther right. Seems to me they're now occupying what used to be the moderate conservative position. The working class has entirely disappeared from their horizon, under the impression that all blue-collar workers aspire to the "middle class" - whatever and wherever that is anymore.
Meantime, the conservative pseudo-religious right is gobbling up the working class vote by stoking the very anxieties and prejudices that we've gone to such painstaking lengths to allay.
An alliance across identity borders* is the only real hope for progress - which is precisely why the right wing politicians pound away at the divisions. Have been doing it, very successfully, since Nixon's second presidential campaign and made huge regress during the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney Axis, kneecapping trade unions, privatizing and selling public assets, vilifying disenfranchised workers...
(* excellent PBS documentary)
In this century, they've been whipping, backstabbing and intimidating their own parties into lock-step solidarity. That doesn't apply only to the US and this present historical cycle; it's a necessary step toward fascism. While progressives tend to be free-thinkers - diverse, contrary, opinionated, argumentative - conservatives are increasingly closed and paranoid.
The question should be, what part of the overall truth it makes up. What percent of all the enslaved people in the US were taught skills that they were permitted to use for their own, rather than their masters' benefit? Did the enslaved people thus empowered choose their occupations? Given the option, between becoming blacksmiths and being free, what would they have preferred?
Of-bloody-course it's true in a very, very limited context: If you or your ancestors have already been kidnapped and transported to another continent, held in filthy imprisonment in chains, sold on the auction block and whipped for the slightest provocation, or bad mood, of the slave-driver, sold away from your family and friends to a town, and your new owner offered to apprentice you to blacksmith rather than put you to work at the docks, would you better off than the other young men who did not get this opportunity? Sure. And this mitigates the institution of slavery? I don't think so.
He was asked a question, as is evident from the video.
As the scholar said, the idea was to point out that enslaved Africans proved resilient, resourceful, and adaptive both while enslaved and after. Do you think this is true?
What choice did they have? Sure, in many cases, it was true and is true. Given the limitation of their educational opportunities - i.e. it was illegal to teach a slave to read - someone who should have been an engineer is better off as a blacksmith than hefting bales of cotton onto ships.
The ones who were not, and are not resourceful and adaptive, and not allowed the opportunity to find out whether they are, become unheralded, uncounted casualties.
It's like pointing to a successful professional athlete to prove that people growing up in poverty can overcome that handicap. Of course that's true, too - in a very small minority of cases, when talent, perseverance, luck and the help of other people play significant parts.
I'm not sure I understand how leftism is really any part of it other than a historic association. As you said, people who are opposed to racism might believe any damned thing about how society should allocate it's resources. They're joined by the conviction that racism is wrong and they don't want to live in a society that accepts it. So leftism is the wrong word. Do you agree?
Nah. He was whistling to racists.
You did mention 'progressive' Quoting frank
That makes it the right word. Aside from the fact that it's always been the progressive left that fought for racial and gender equality, as well as social services and education for the disadvantaged segments of the population, of whom visible minorities constitute a disproportionate part.
Quoting frank
Yea... except the allocation of resources as imagined by the left and right have a decisive effect on which groups are able to exercise their citizenship rights.
Frinstance, did you know that
It was hard enough, and he had to be resourceful and ruthless enough at that time, to get bipartisan support.
That couldn't happen now. And to make sure nothing like that could happen again was the reason for the huge divide we see now. That's when the segregationists began aggressively to campaign on religious issues, like reproductive rights and equal marriage, plus the scaremongering against immigrants.
Who benefits? Who pays? None of this can be separated from economic issues.
Right, but times change. Notice in the article I linked, it explains that DeSantis is a pain in the GOP's ass at this time because they want to court minorities. If you're opposed to racism, a fair portion of your allies are conservative. And so maybe that's really the identity politics that needs to die: where we divide off against one another along conservative/progressive lines when the really important issues of the day aren't divided that way. We need a shake-up.
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't really think there is any leftism of any significance in the US. Maybe that will change someday, but in the meantime, the nazis are making progress starting with indoctrination of children to disregard the American heritage of slavery. This is what I'm saying: it's time for Americans to wake up and realize that left/right isn't important right now. Identity politics is important.
Quoting Vera Mont
There were actually national security interests that made the Civil Rights Movement possible. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened then either.
Quoting Vera Mont
Really? I'm not seeing why.
Do they? Clocks tick, calendars turn pages, but the divide between the empowered and disempowered is the same now as it was in Assyria.
Quoting frank
Can't read it without a subscription. (Which is ironic in light of their slogan "Democracy dies in the dark")
I'll believe that when they change the shape of the gerrymanders in North Carolina and take down the confederate flags in Mississippi. I suspect it's more because their two front runners for candidate are slagging each other off in public. Republican party division means a better shot for the Democrats.
I don't think either has a shot in today's GOP, but they make pretty window-dressing.
None of this can be separated from economic issues
Quoting frank
That's unfortunate. Maybe you need to delve a little deeper into American history, demographics and economic disparity.
Then why are your ears ringing?
The statement, in itself, is true. Many slaves were skilled workers in various trades, both on plantations and in shops. Blacksmithing is one example. The US Capitol building and White House were largely built by skilled slave labor from several trades.
It is probably the case that some slaves either escaped slavery or were freed and used their salable skills to earn a living. Those facts do not take anything away from the evils of slavery.
Quoting frank
Identity groups did not achieve major victories in improving society and reducing unfairness and injustice. It was broadly based efforts like the Progressive Movement, the FDR-era reform efforts, the Civil Rights Movement, and Women's Rights movement. These efforts were broadly based and were directed at diverse targets. Their work promoted a greater sense of unity across divides.
Identity politics tends toward ever more fractioning of a given group's identity. For example, sexual identity politics has achieved such a dizzying array of "sexual identities" that identity politics becomes impossible. Conversely, Blacks can organize around large issues, each one affecting large populations (hiring practices, real estate practices, health care practices, etc.). Blacks are a major demographic, less an "identity". The same goes for poor whites. They, like blacks are not an "identity" -- they are a large demographic segment. The very comfortable top 10%, the professional and wealthy class, are likewise not an identity group. Women cross different demographic groups, and are too large and varied to be called an "identity". What does it mean for 165,000,000 women to have "an identity"? Like as not they have many identities. The same for men.
So, no. I don't think we need "identity politics". We need economic justice across the board; major tax reform in favor of the working class. Higher wages and a greater share of profits for workers. Equity in health care, housing, and education. A serious reduction in the privileges of the elite class. Stuff like that.
Are you talking about the USA? Outside of the Democrat and Republic parties, there is (for all practical purposes) NOTHING. Democratic Socialists? Progressive Labor Party? Socialist Workers Party? American Communist Party? Green Party? PFFFT.
All together, these parties command too few votes to win a dog catcher election.
I count myself as a socialist, but there is no party which is at risk of having to represent anyone in a legislature or city hall. I don't like it, but that's life under mature capitalism.
I think most of what I would call identity politics, you would say is not. What would an example of identity politics be then?
Quoting BC
They really aren't that big a demographic, but they're a huge identity. Why am I seeing this backward?
No; I'm aware of the two-party system (and the peripheral existence of some 50 others). I was talking about Canada and the UK, chiefly, though of course the Dems have long forsaken the FDR model. They look, frankly, gutless.
We still do have alternate parties with some clout, but they're not outright socialist, and the far right splinter ones with very clear agendas are proliferating. At this stage, our best hope for effective governance - only just long enough to get some important things done - would be a coalition, but the entire conservative spectrum has been poisoned against the concept and the liberal voters are skeptical.
Quoting BC
They're also systematically disadvantaged, but I guess most of them deserve obscurity.
A recurring question: Who thought it was a good idea to stake jurisprudence, law-enforcement and animal control on politics instead of competence?
No, they didnt benefit from slavery, and no one suggested such a thing. But it is true that slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit as the Florida education board wrote in their guide.
For the benefit of everyone in this discussion, here is the actual document in question.
What I find fascinating about this document is that (for all intents and purposes) it ignores racism. The word "racism" occurs exactly 3 times in the curriculum - and 2 are duplicates and one is in a discussion of the holocaust. While the curriculum spends a lot of time on historical facts (the details of slave trade, black contributions to society, etc) the curriculum ignores that slavery & segregation in the US were based on racism and what impact that might have on the emotional well being of both whites & blacks.
The word "reparations" is also not mentioned in the black history section.
In the big reshuffle, conservative southern Dixiecrats and conservative Republicans merged. Liberal Republicans just disappeared, and liberal Democrats occupied the territory left by the departed liberal Republicans. FDR-type democrats are now smeared as 'socialists', and are far fewer in number.
The plan calls for much more material about African Americans than I received in high school or college history courses (through the 1960s). That's all to the good. But how many courses is all this stuff supposed to be taught in and at what grade level? I can see teachers covering these materials in a very good school with literate, cooperative, attentive students. In schools where students are less literate, less cooperative, and less attentive it would be an uphill slog.
Florida ranks fairly highly in education, so maybe the course material is doable. Their racial gap between the performance of colored students vs white students is not as wide as Minnesota's, for instance, which is another state that ranks well in education
If they want to stir things up even more, they could do the same thing for working class whites, who have always been considered kind of trashy from the colonial period to the present. (See White Trash : The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg).
The facts of the working class, white and black, is a key piece of American history, which like the history of slavery, hasn't been treated honestly.
Quoting BC
It looks extensive... if all of that is factually taught - including statistics and proportions. It would really be nice if students understood the historical underpinnings of their economy and social structure. Ads you say, a good teacher and receptive students could get much value out of it, especially if the students are then pointed toward other sources of sound information.
Quoting BC
I remember! I wasn't there, of course, but I spent a lot of time with Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite.
Quoting BC
Buried under a mountain of upward-mobility via bootstrap hype.
*It's a really great resource, btw, that graph. Thanks!