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Atrios and Tapped never read my blog

by Prometheus 6
September 10, 2003 - 7:17am.
on Race and Identity

The identity politics discussion between Tapped and Atrios has been interesting.

I have no issues with Atrios' position (while recognizing that he could conceivably have issues with mine). And I actually understand what Tapped is saying, but I have some questions for the crew at The American Prospect that will unfortunately never be asked of them. Not snarky questions like my last set…I was annoyed and that was my gut response. But I have thought through my position. I do have reasons for being so intently partisan.

If I say "Black people" each and every American knows exactly who I'm talking about…a socially defined, rather arbitrary group of such varied appearance it makes no sense to say we're grouped by skin color. My sister Natalie prefers "melanin challenged." A brother I know talks about "the New Afrikan Nation." I myself when being precise say "people whose African ancestry is the visually and/or culturally dominant feature to the perceiver." And all the alternatives somehow coincide. The same group of people are under discussion.

We generalize by talking about culture as the defining trait, or we discuss "people of color" to dilute the differences. We suggest EA (Economic Assistance) replace AA (Affirmative Action) and insist on race neutrality. All noble intellectual positions. And we know race is as much a social construct as the Oakland Raiders. But just as the Raiders have the same interests as the Tennessee Titans yet must approach them differently because of the specific composition of the team, the different "identity interest" groups, due to the specific composition and experiences of the individuals that compose them, have different needs and require different approaches to pursue those goals.

Does this make sense?

My question for Tapped is, how do they suggest we proceed? Do they suggest that we simply deny our specific needs?

I've referred to this in the past as The Procrustean Problem. It comes down to this: there are aspects of, say, the Latino experience that simply doesn't fit into the box defined by the mainstream, or by the Black experience, or the European immigrant experience. If, for instance, Black people choose their responses solely from the options provided by the mainstream experience, aspects of ourselves will be unserved and others will be amputated.

Is this truly what they suggest? I think not. I hope not. I'd like to think their concern is over not exceeding the point where a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, and the point where excessive rhetoric becomes a goad. But in truth, when we whose issues do not match the mainstream's precisely read suggestions that we abandon the pursuit of those issues from putative allies, it sounds a lot like that point has been reached by the mainstream.

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Submitted by Brad DeLong (not verified) on September 10, 2003 - 11:09am.

I think you overestimate the theoretical sophistication of TAPPED. What is driving TAPPED is--in my humble opinion--not the belief that Black identity is unimportant in a world in which a white felon gets called for many more job interviews than an otherwise similar Black male.What is driving TAPPED is the fact that Richard Nixon's decision in the 1960s to turn the Republican Party into the Party That Doesn't Like Black People has been a tremendous electoral success for Republicans, and that TAPPED is desperate to find a way to somehow minimize this factor in American elections.

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on September 10, 2003 - 1:53pm.

So to minimize that factor they would minimize Black people and our needs? Pretend we're not here, and after they regain the position of power, then what? What it took to get them is what it takes to keep them, you know?How is that any less "identity politics" than what they decry? If you're right I'm hard pressed to see the difference between them and anyone else who would position minorities for their own benefit.Maybe if we call it "reverse identity politics" they'll see the problem. If they care…which, if you're right, they dont.

Submitted by Brad DeLong (not verified) on September 11, 2003 - 12:37am.

They care... but wish to defer all discussion about what is to be done until after the election is won: the position is that the highest morality involves doing whatever it takes to get the power to do good. How much does bashing African-Americans for pursuing "identity politics" before the election then shape post-election Democratic policy in harmful directions? Certainly much more than I would wish, but I cannot tell how much.But reading things like some of the responses at http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,capital_exchange,00.html to David Wessel's stating-the-obvious column last week about employment discrimination makes me very, very afraid. There are a huge number of powerful white people whose attitude toward African-Americans reminds me of a saying of Machiavelli's: we never forgive those to whom we have done injury.

Submitted by Cobb (not verified) on September 11, 2003 - 12:24pm.

I wrestle with the fact that there is this need to respond to the most popular and outspoken bloggers on this matter. Drum comments finally because the LATimes comments. TAPPED comments because Atrios comments. Kaus and Rutten are also instigators.Of all the bloggers, Orcinus has been the most patient and correct in perspective, but his are not the talking points. Barlow deserves a hat tip, I suppose, for raising the translation issue. That's tangential to the substance of Bustamante's candidacy but we do have a translation issue here.Nobody has given Rodolfo Acuna's open letter to Fox much comment and he's the man in Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge - a true insider. We've got an echo chamber that's creating its own reality which is bad enough, but that it doesn't speak directly to those people it speaks about makes it treacherous. This is why I am in agreement with P6 with regards to his categorization of the mainstream. It's not a black thing that others can't understand, it's something that's not even heard and barely acknowledged. I cannot express how frustrating this phenomenon is for those of us who try to represent some authentic and critical views. In the end, my angle has been to build up theory to explain what in the end amounts to willful ignorance, and I find myself often echoing Ellis Cose' "Rage of a Privileged Class". There is a racist double standard that calls blacks who have absolutely nothing to do with crime or dysfunction to take special responsibility for criminal and dysfunctional elements of their racial group. Now this applies to Latinos as well.Because this strategy is notably evident in identity politics of white groups such as American Renaissance and the EAIF, it's blithely assumed that this is what identity politics is all about. The culture wars are not over.

Submitted by Cobb (not verified) on September 11, 2003 - 3:01pm.

Trackback from Cobb:

Bottom line, whose identity politics are the worst? Whitefolks'....