Applied Government				      				Name___________________________
Identity Politics Harkness
Mr. Faulhaber		

Background 
During the last month, we have identified ideologies, differentiated political platforms, broke down cleavages (based on race, sex, religion, age, etc.), and discussed the Winsor affinity groups. This is the typical work of social scientists (the education branch that includes economics, polisci, psychology, etc.) who love to categorize, sort, or classify people and data to break down information to more easily understand events, people, and other social phenomena. Although I often jest and like to define social science as the scientific study of pointing out the obvious, the discipline is a bit more complex and tells us about the world beyond our immediate experience, and can help explain how our own society works - from the causes of unemployment or what helps economic growth, to how and why people vote, or what makes people happy.

Proponents of identity politics argue that the aforementioned information provides vital information for governments and policymakers, local authorities, non-governmental organizations to surgically create policies to create a more equal society that enriches the lives of all. In this vein, many are encouraging president-elect Joe Biden try to create a diverse cabinet, choosing secretaries to lead the fifteen cabinet agencies as much based upon identity factors (race, sexual orientation, and gender) as on merit. They further argue, that it does not stray too far from past practice. For example, the Secretary of the Interior -which manages public lands- is usually a westerner since most federally owned land and national parks are in the west. Geography, then, largely dictates the candidate pool. This is consistent in how he chose Kamala Harris after telling supporters he would pick a “black woman.” The Supreme Court similarly tried to have geographic diversity with member being selected from the judicial circuits and later had a “Jewish”, “Catholic”, and “Minority” seat and when RBG died many mandated that president Trump select a female to replace the feminist icon.  

Opponents, however, argue the Supreme Court no longer has those “seats” demonstrating a belief that we have moved beyond politics. Moreover, they argue identity politics treats minorities as a monolithic group instead of the manner inconsistent with how we treat whites. Furthermore, the United States is a melting pot of races, languages, ethnicities, religions, etc. Unlike European nation-states which share a common race, ethnicity, language, and religion that unites their people the United States instead relies on fundamental governing principles whose consensus creates that same bond. Identity politics, then, cuts again those principles and instead of uniting America creates greater political polarization which runs against the nations motto of e pluribus unum which translates to “out of many, one.” 

The summer protests further exasperated this divide and brought the concepts of identity politics into consciousness of the public’s mind. School’s have developed new curriculum, critical race theory has been implemented in governmental job trainings, and how to build a “more perfect union” has been hotly debated. What do you think? Are you a proponent or an opponent of identity politics are you somewhere in between? 
Project Goals____________________________________________________________________ 

From the beginning of the year we have focused on civil discourse and the ability to discuss the big ideas that permeates the American culture in a respectful manner with the goal of developing a deep understanding of contemporary politics and the issues surrounding the political arena and their varying perspectives. 

Each of you has a unique perspective based upon your own political socialization process built upon factors that no other member of this class shares. Share those perspectives and learn deeply from one another.  Understand though the two most common complaints thus far have been some students have not come to class with the appropriate research done to be an active participant or to positively contribute to the goal of understanding the issue in greater depth and some students have refused to share with their classmates their unique perspective, experience, and/or research. Do the legwork to be an active contributor to a deeper understanding of the issue. Talk to share your perspective and research so others can learn from you but only if you have done your research.

The Stanford experiment found that when educated citizens came together to share their opinion, polarization was reduced. Be willing to be open-minded and change your opinion. Do not be puritanical. Come in with the idea you do not know everything and humble enough to be aware that you might actually be wrong. In that vein, what you decide today should become more nuanced or change throughout the remainder of the year and your life 

Harkness/Deliberation Steps___________________________________________________________________

1. Before you research, determine what you know, would like to know, and need to know to be successful in the Harkness. In your note sheet, write down the following categories and answer the questions:
•	What I think I know includes…
•	What I know includes…
•	What I want to know includes… 
•	What I need to know to answer this question include…
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Complete Book Notes: “Political Partisanship and Ideology” (pgs. 163-164)

3. Echo Chamber Podcast “Rabbit Hole” Notes, Summary and Review
   + Optional Research on Polarization and psychological Phenomena of group Think and Group Polarization  

4. Ted Talk Video: “Beware the Single Story” Notes, Summary and Review

5. Articles Review: 
    1. Read Sympathetically: 
     - Read all the material BEFORE you make your final conclusion (Be Open-Minded and be willing to change your mind)
      - underline, emoji, comment while reading
   2. Summary: 
       a-What was the author's thesis?
       b-What Proof did he/she offer?
       c-Info you found Interesting and worthy of sharing
   3. Critique: 
       a-Did you agree/disagree with the author's thesis? 

Read Sympathetically, underline, emoji, comment while reading
“The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution”
November 2017 • Volume 46, Number 11 • Matthew Continetti, Editor-in-Chief, Washington Free Beacon
The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on October 24, 2017, during a two-week teaching residency at Hillsdale as a Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Journalism.

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973, the year the first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago—a book that demolished any pretense of communism’s moral authority—was published in the West. The ideological challenge of socialism was fading, its fighting spirit dwindling. This presented a challenge for the Left: how to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable?

The Left found its answer in an identity politics that grew out of anti-colonialism. Marx’s class struggle was reformulated into an ethno-racial struggle—a ceaseless competition between colonizer and colonized, victimizer and victim, oppressor and oppressed. Instead of presenting collectivism and central planning as the gateway to the realization of genuine freedom, the new multiculturalist Left turned to unmasking the supposed power relations that subordinated minorities and exploited third world nations.

The original battleground was the American university, where, as Bruce Bawer writes in The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Politics and the Closing of the Liberal Mind,

The point [became] simply to “prove”—repetitively, endlessly—certain facile, reductive, and invariably left-wing points about the nature of power and oppression. In this new version of the humanities, all of Western civilization is not analyzed through the use of reason or judged according to aesthetic standards that have been developed over centuries; rather, it is viewed through prisms of race, class, and gender, and is hailed or condemned in accordance with certain political checklists.

Under the new leftist dispensation, the study of English became the application of critical and literary theory to disparate texts so as to uncover the hidden power relations they concealed. The study of history became the study of social history or “people’s history,” the record of Western Civilization’s oppression of various groups. And popping up everywhere were new departments of “studies”: African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Chicano Studies, Gender Studies, and so on. “What these radicals blandly call multiculturalism,” wrote Irving Kristol, 

is as much a “war against the West” as Nazism and Stalinism ever were. Under the guise of multiculturalism, their ideas—whose radical substance often goes beyond the bounds of the political into sheer fantasy—are infiltrating our educational system at all levels.

This revolution in American universities was accomplished swiftly and largely outside the public eye. What little resistance the radicals met was vanquished with accusations of racism. It was not until the late 1980s, with Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns, the battle over the Stanford core curriculum, and the publication of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, that the rise of identity politics on campus and the idea of “political correctness” became a page one story. By that time, however, it was too late. Alumni, trustees, and parents had no recourse. The American university was irrevocably changed.

There have been liberal critics of identity politics through the years. In 1991, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. published The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. Schlesinger noted that the Soviet Union had collapsed in a heap of warring nationalities and that the state of Yugoslavia was in the process of doing the same, and asked whether America would be next. Presenting America as a nation of nations, a shared national culture whose diverse citizenry is united behind principles of liberty and equal justice, Schlesinger quoted Jean de Crèvecoeur’s 1782 Letters from an American Farmer:

He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.

In 2004, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published Who Are We? Huntington examined the stunning immigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and argued that it was undermining longstanding notions of American national identity. America, Huntington said, has both a creed and a culture. The creed is formulated in the founding documents of our nation and in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The culture derives from the Anglo-Protestant settlers who first peopled North America. Huntington worried about a “hispanicization” of American culture.

This book was controversial, to say the least. Nor was it without weaknesses. It is hard for this descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants to accept the notion that America’s culture is monolithically Anglo-Protestant. Furthermore, Huntington tended to underestimate the importance of the creed in shaping the culture. But such criticism should not obscure the fundamental point: Huntington, a Democrat who advised Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign, shared the same concerns one finds today among Trump supporters about immigration’s effect on American society.

This year another liberal academic, Columbia humanities professor Mark Lilla, has taken up the banner. “Identity politics on the left,” he writes, 

was at first about large classes of people . . . seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. But by the 1980s, it had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow, and exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities. The main result has been to turn people back onto themselves, rather than turning them outward towards the wider world they share with others. It has left them unprepared to think about the common good in non-identity terms and what must be done practically to secure it—especially the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from themselves to join a common effort.

Lilla exhorts Democrats to replace identity liberalism with civic liberalism in the mode of Franklin Roosevelt. That Lilla’s opponents wasted no time in labeling his argument as racist is a testament to how divided the Left is on this issue.

Despite these intellectual dissidents, the Democratic Party and liberal elites appear committed to the idea that multiculturalism and identity politics, combined with the changing demographics of America, will bring about an enduring Democratic national majority. The two victories of Barack Obama strengthened their assumptions and set the template for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Lilla notes, for example, that a visitor to Clinton’s website could open tabs related to ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, but not one related to a shared vision of American community.

This approach has had catastrophic consequences for the Democratic Party. “The fatal conclusion the Clinton team made after the Michigan primary debacle,” Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg writes, “was that she could not win white working-class voters, and that the ‘rising electorate’ would make up the difference. She finished her campaign with rallies in inner cities and university towns. Macomb [County, Michigan] got the message.”

But the Democrats’ theory behind support for identity politics rests on shaky assumptions. Liberal journalist John B. Judis, who helped originate the theory with his book The Emerging Democratic Majority, has recanted his thesis. “The U.S. census makes a critical assumption that undermines its predictions of a majority-nonwhite country,” he writes. “It projects that the same percentage of people who currently identify themselves as ‘Latino’ or ‘Asian’ will continue to claim those identities in future generations. In reality, that’s highly unlikely.”

Intermarriage and assimilation will affect immigrants from these groups just as they have affected other immigrant groups. What’s more, voting allegiances can change as newcomers are integrated into the majority. There is also the problem that, as Democrats become more closely identified with identity politics, non-minority voters may swing even more decisively to Republicans—continuing the trend we saw in 2016.

Democrats fooled themselves into thinking that identity politics won Obama his two terms when in fact precisely the opposite had occurred. Obama made his debut on the national stage in the summer of 2004, during the Democratic National Convention that nominated John Kerry for president. The only reason anyone remembers that convention is because of Obama’s keynote address, where he repudiated the division of American society and famously said, “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” From the start, Obama’s appeal on the campaign trail was to the noblest and most unifying aspects of the American political tradition.

This didn’t last. Shortly before Obama was reelected, he gave an interview where he said his top priority in a second term would be immigration reform that included an amnesty for illegal immigrants. The reason, he explained, was that Hispanic turnout would win him victory. Here Obama was wrong. Targeted appeals to Hispanic and black voters did not win him reelection. What won him reelection were his attacks on Mitt Romney for not understanding the economic condition of working Americans.

The most significant and effective advertisement of the 2012 campaign was a testimonial from a factory worker who had been laid off during one of Romney’s corporate downsizings. What came to be known as the “coffin ad” drove a wedge between the Republican nominee and the voters on whom Republican victory depended. Four years later, when the Republicans nominated a very different sort of candidate, these voters switched allegiances and backed Donald Trump.

It is no accident that identity politics is most rampant today in the academy, in entertainment, in the media, in Silicon Valley, and in corporate boardrooms. Identity politics is a veneer over the class politics that truly defines our society, and education is the best prism through which to view class in America today. Higher levels of education are not only correlated with higher incomes and better life prospects, but also with a greater acceptance of the theories behind identity politics—including the idea, rejected last year by the voters of the rural Midwest, that they are the beneficiaries of white privilege.

The condescension of liberal elites toward the white working class, evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of immigration control and cultural assimilation is as pronounced as it is repulsive. It is summed up in Hillary Clinton’s writing off of so many voters last year as belonging in a “basket of deplorables”—the converse of Mitt Romney’s similarly destructive class-based dismissal of the 47 percent of Americans who do not pay income taxes. (They don’t pay income taxes because they don’t make enough money to qualify.)

Liberals seem blind to the connection between the high levels of income inequality they criticize and what they would otherwise call the hegemonic discourse of identity politics. This is why Clinton’s comment that breaking up the big banks would do nothing for the minority groups at the base of her campaign was so revealing. It might not do anything for them as members of identity groups, but perhaps it would help them as workers and as citizens.

Ensconced in affluent city centers and tony suburbs, liberal elites tell themselves that identity politics will carry them to the progressive future of their dreams. They appear utterly unaware that the radical cultural transformation they support—not to mention the insulting, dismissive, and self-righteous way they meet opposition to their designs—is seen from outside their bubble as provocative.
As political analyst Sean Trende has written:

Consider that over the course of the past few years, Democrats and liberals have: booed the inclusion of God in their platform at the 2012 convention . . . endorsed a regulation that would allow transgendered students to use the bathroom and locker room corresponding to their identity; attempted to force small businesses to cover drugs they believe induce abortions; attempted to force nuns to provide contraceptive coverage; forced Brendan Eich to step down as chief executive officer of Mozilla due to his opposition to marriage equality; fined a small Christian bakery over $140,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding; vigorously opposed a law in Indiana that would provide protections against similar regulations—despite having overwhelmingly supported similar laws when they protected Native American religious rights—and then scoured the Indiana countryside trying to find a business that would be affected by the law before settling upon a small pizza place in the middle of nowhere and harassing the owners.

We tend to view these stories as examples of the culture war. They are more than that: they are examples of a coastal, metropolitan, highly schooled upper class warring against the traditions and freedoms of a middle American, exurban and rural, lower-middle and working class with some or no college education. In short, examples of a privileged few attempting to impose their will on a recalcitrant majority.
Here is Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg again:

Obama’s refrain [of building “ladders of opportunity” for those left behind in the economic recovery] was severely out of touch with what was happening to most Americans and the working class more broadly. In our research, “ladders of opportunity” fell far short of what real people were looking for. Incomes sagged after the financial crisis, pensions lost value, and many lost their housing wealth, while people faced dramatically rising costs for things that mattered—health care, education, housing, and child care. People faced vanishing geographic, economic, and social mobility. . . . At the same time, billionaires spent massively to influence politicians and parked their money in the big cities whose dynamism drew in the best talent from the smaller towns and cities.

The result of this class conflict is an America in danger of coming apart. “Liberals must take seriously Americans’ yearning for social cohesion,” writes Peter Beinart in The Atlantic Monthly. But despite the efforts of liberals like Beinart and Lilla, the Left faces obstacles to stitching America back together. The wealthiest and most energetic segments of the Left are committed to multiculturalism on the one hand and transnationalism on the other. What is more, the Left rejects the natural rights theory of the American Founding at the core of our tradition.

What has traditionally held Americans together is the idea that each of us is made in the image of our Creator and endowed with certain unalienable rights. But not only that idea. We are also held together by the culture that emanates from the intermingling of dynamic peoples and unchanging principles. To combat identity politics, we must emphasize an American nationalism based on both a commitment to the ideals of the American Founding and a shared love of our national history and culture—a history and culture of individual freedom and religious pluralism, resistant to centralized authority and ever expanding into new frontiers and new possibilities.

The American people are united by our creed of freedom and equality, and also by our habits, our manners, our national language, our territorial integrity, our national symbols—such as the National Anthem, the Flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance—our civic traditions, and our national story. We should tell that story forthrightly and proudly; we should continue our traditions of local government and patriotic displays; we should guard the symbols of our heritage against attack; and we should recognize that the needs of our citizens take priority.

We should also remember the words of a great American nationalist, Abraham Lincoln, at the close of his First Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Summary: 

       a-What was the author's thesis?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

       b-What Proof did he/she offer?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 	c-Info you found Interesting and worthy of sharing
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 3. Critique: Did you agree/disagree with the author's thesis? 
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Read Sympathetically, underline, emoji, comment while reading

Identity Politics: Friend or Foe?
PUBLICATION- September 24, 2019-- By Alicia Garza
The term “identity politics” was first coined by Black feminist Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective in 1974. Identity politics originated from the need to reshape movements that had until then prioritized the monotony of sameness over the strategic value of difference.

The “second wave” feminist movement fought for body autonomy, pushed for women’s equality and demanded that women be treated as human beings. However, much like the first wave of feminism, which was largely centered around women’s suffrage and gaining the right to vote, white women became the default standard for all women

While segregation was no longer formally the law of the land in 1974, racism and discrimination based on class was still deeply embedded in efforts to achieve change, again, because the change desired was progress for white women and not all women. Women who identified as feminists were encouraged to join together on the basis of a common experience of discrimination based on sex, with no attention paid to the fact that not all women’s experiences were the same, and further, that sex was not a category that could adequately describe gender.

This is the context for the emergence of identity politics. Stated simply, identity politics is the assertion that “the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.”1 The Combahee River Collective detailed how their experiences as Black women were different than those of white women, and this mattered because understanding the ways in which racial, economic, gender, and other oppressions were linked and shaped their lives helped to make sure that no one could be left behind.

The purpose of this paper is to explore “identity politics” and whether or not it is a useful tool for civic engagement and movements today. In this paper, I argue that identity politics is not only widely misunderstood, but intentionally distorted in order to avoid acknowledging the ways in which “identity” shapes the economy, our democracy, and our society. I explore the Black feminist origins of identity politics, and explore how and why identity politics is being weaponized among progressives and conservatives—and with what consequences for increased participation by marginalized groups in mainstream politics.

Ultimately, I argue that identity politics is indeed a critical tool for organizing and civic engagement. Recognizing oneself and one’s experiences in politics is a motivating factor for participation in that which is political. At a moment when America is facing some of the sharpest political polarization that it has seen in decades, anyone looking to secure the participation of marginalized groups had better start acknowledging that they’re marginalized in the first place, and second, working to design policy solutions that leave no one behind. 

What We Get Wrong about Identity Politics

Leaving no one behind is ideal, and, despite the best intentions, people are always getting left behind in social movements—particularly when the differences that emerge as a result of various forms of oppression are erased or intentionally ignored.

Social change work is a series of scientific experiments. In experiments, to determine whether or not change has occurred, you have to have a control. The control in a scientific experiment is, by definition, a sample that remains the same through an experiment. The control helps you to determine whether or not change has happened. The control must remain the same or equal at all times to ensure accurate measurement of results.

In social change movements in America, the control is often based on the progress that white people are making in their lives against a white standard. In the women’s movement, for example, the measure of progress is taken as whether or not change and progress is happening in the lives of white women.

It’s well known that there is a lack of parity in wages between cisgender (people for whom their gender assigned at birth matches their gender identity) men and women. On average, cisgender women make 85 cents to every dollar a cisgender man makes.2 Women of all racial and ethnic groups make less than their male counterparts, and also make less than white men. Black women make 65.3 cents to every dollar that a white man makes, and 89 cents to every dollar a Black man makes. Latinx women make 61.6 cents to every dollar that a white man makes, and 85.7 percent of what a Latinx man makes. Among Latinx transgender and gender non-conforming people, 28 percent reported making less than $10,000 a year, and 34 percent of Black transgender and gender non-conforming people report the same.3

It is significant that discussions of the gender wage gap often start off with the assumption that all women make 85 cents to every dollar men make, since that is only true for white women. Without this qualification, one might think that all women make 80 cents to each dollar a man makes. Time and time again, the experiences of white communities are used as the framework from which to understand inequality, and yet the communities experiencing inequality from a range of factors, all at the same time, are communities of color. From abortion rights to pay equity, comparing the conditions of white women to white men has been the way to assess whether or not change is actually happening and progress is being made.

Identity politics holds us accountable to ask more questions about for whom progress is being made. The significant gaps in wages for Black and Latinx women indicate that while some are making progress, others continue to lag behind.

Identity politics says that no longer should we be expected to fight against someone else’s oppression without fighting against our own, too. The Combahee River Collective was concerned with how our lived experiences shape our lives, and identity politics offered social movements, like the women’s movement, the gift of uncovering what had been ignored or devalued. Black women who were poor and working class wanted feminism as much as white middle-class women did. Identity politics not only showed Black women that we were worthy of feminism—worthy of being treated as human beings—but it also gave white middle class women the gift of understanding that for feminism to succeed, feminism could not pretend that the world revolves around the struggle for parity between white women and white men.

Whiteness as the Standard

The worldview and experiences of white communities is also shaping the debate about identity politics. Racial identity is an invented series of social categories which have impacts on power and agency socially, economically, and politically. Though race is socially constructed, it has material and practical implications for the lives of those who have been assigned racial categories at the losing end of the spectrum of power. Racial categorizations that fall on the side of the spectrum that are non-white tend to lack power and agency vis-à-vis those that are on the white side of the spectrum

Whiteness in America functions the same way that a “control” does in an experiment. In an experiment, to measure whether or not change has happened, you have to have a control—largely considered to be a standard against which change is compared. You know if change has occurred through your experiment when the entity being experimented on changes as a result of your intervention—because the control does not change.

In the social experiment called America, progress or change is determined by whether or not conditions have changed for white people and against a white standard.

Another way to look at this is not as an experiment, but instead, through the lens of what is considered “normal.” If I go to the store right now and look for Band-Aids, the color will be compatible with white skin, not mine. If I look for a pair of pantyhose, it’s not as likely I’ll find a shade that matches my skin. And up until a year ago, it was close to impossible for women of color to find shades of foundation. In America, “nude” or “flesh-toned” means white. Again, the standard in America is what is white—what appeals to white people, what makes sense to white people, what activates and motivates white people, and so on. It’s not just true at the beauty store—it’s true throughout the economy, our democracy, and the rest of our society.

If whiteness is the standard, it also is the criteria used to determine whether ideas, actions, or experiences have worth, merit, or value. Whiteness attempts to determine what is valid. Too often, whiteness dismisses the experiences and worldviews of people who are not white, because the opinions, values, needs, and beliefs of people who are not white are not considered to have merit, particularly when compared to whiteness.

When the Black Lives Matter movement exploded across the world, whiteness worked to define whether or not the anger of Black people was legitimate and justified, and at the same time, whiteness attempted to redefine the movement as dangerous, aimless, misguided, and violent. Whiteness attempted to de-fang the power of Black Lives Matter as a slogan and a rallying cry with “All Lives Matter” effectively erasing any mention of race. Changing “Black Lives Matter” to “All Lives Matter” turns what was a discourse on structural racism, police, and other forms of state violence into a two-dimensional conversation where race either does or doesn’t matter. Race-neutral language is a core tenet of whiteness—race, and racial oppression or racial exclusion, is made invisible on the surface while at the same time being allowed to organize the economy, democracy, and society.

Whiteness is the control and the standard because whiteness is fundamentally about power. Whiteness attempts to shape worldviews, ideas, and experiences because whiteness seeks to maintain the power it has been afforded, and subsequently affords to people who have been designated as white, for the purposes of implementing whiteness and, as such, implementing power.

The debate over identity politics is no exception to this rule.

Not everyone sees identity politics as a gift. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, a plethora of articles appeared in news outlets, slamming “liberal identity politics.” Television pundits began to decry “identity politics” as the reason that Democrats lost the presidential election.

There are a number of arguments that are deployed against identity politics, and they are deployed for a number of reasons. One such argument declares that a fixation on diversity renders people incapable of seeing outside of their own experience, preventing them from being able to build relationships with those who do not share their experiences. And, in the political realm, they argue that a focus on differences, rather than what we share in common, is a strategic mistake in elections. It is worth noting that these arguments are primarily deployed towards those who are not white.

These arguments rest on the notion that identity politics, as they define them, leave people out—and yet they fail to acknowledge that the politics of identity are not responsible for the prevalence of those identities. Identity is only important when—through no fault of your own—you are assigned an identity that promises worse life outcomes than those who are not assigned an identity that is marginalized from power.

Following the logic of contrarians of identity politics, no one should pay attention to the fact that being assigned “Black” almost guarantees that your life chances will be worse than someone who is assigned a “white” identity, because it could alienate a white person and leave them out of the conversation. Instead of addressing the fact that Black people are more likely to die in childbirth than white people, that Black people with disabilities are eight times more likely to be shot and killed by police than their white counterparts, that Black people on average are twice as likely to be poor or to be unemployed than white people, or that white households are 13 times as wealthy as Black households, critics of identity politics would prefer we not address these disparities, for fear of alienating people who are not experiencing them.

The real problem in America isn’t identity politics and making difference visible—it’s that those discrepancies exist in the first place.

Critics of identity politics, intentionally or unintentionally, uphold a logic of whiteness that functions in similar ways to that of the edict presented in the movie The Wizard of Oz—they want you to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Does Identity Politics Bridge or Divide?

Another fallacy from critics of identity politics is that identifying and addressing differences somehow prevent people with different histories, backgrounds, ethnicities, identities, or experiences from finding commonality

For example, Black communities are not the only ones who suffer from the ways in which whiteness distributes power unevenly in favor of white communities. Communities who are not white are not a monolith—and communities who share an experience of marginalization or disenfranchisement can and often do come together, across their differences, to end that marginalization. But this doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that they leave their identities at the door. Just like Black communities experience the negative effects of entrenched white power, so do Latinx communities, Arab communities, Muslim communities, Pacific Islander communities, Asian diasporic communities, and so on.

To be clear, these communities do not just come together because they are marginalized. They come together to achieve a common goal—freedom and equality for all of us.

Critics of identity politics are correct when they caution that a focus primarily on experience can detract from building alliances or developing a plan of action. That certainly is true when identity politics isn’t geared towards shifting the balance of power. However, critics of identity politics should be careful not to paint with such a broad brush. The Combahee River Collective wasn’t a knitting circle—they were a group of Black women, many of whom identified as lesbian and poor, who pushed the movements they should have been a part of to be more effective in acknowledging the impacts of race, class, gender, disability and more on the issues they were trying to impact, together, for the sake of the collective. 

Demanding that anyone divorce their lived experience from their participation in political action is not only dangerous, but it serves to reinforce power dynamics that are bad for the collective.

What’s ironic about the controversy surrounding identity politics is that few seem to take issue with the white identity politics shaping our lives. The critiques of identity politics only arise when those who are marginalized and disconnected from power assert that their experiences matter, and demand action to ensure that they can, in fact, achieve parity socially, economically, and politically with whites.

In the lead up to the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump ran on the slogan of “Make America Great Again.” Making America great again insinuated that America was great before, leaving one to ask: “What are we trying to restore America to, and what are we trying to change it from?” Throughout the campaign, the answer became clear—America, apparently, was great before its demographics changed, before women had rights, before Black people could stand up for their rights, and so on. The America invoked by Trump was an America run and dominated by white, Christian, heterosexual men. That America was powered by blue-collar manufacturing jobs, and in that America, people of color, women, and others did not have equal rights to white men. In that America, the one that Trump and before him President Ronald Reagan idealized, it was illegal for Black people to share public accommodations with white people.

The problem that those who decried identity politics had, then, was with what identity politics did when used to empower those who lacked power—in society, in the economy, and in American democracy.

Identity politics is a threat to those who hold and wield power, because it destabilizes the control against which all else is compared. Identity politics is a threat to white power because it asserts that whiteness has shaped all of our lives in ways that do not benefit us—even those who possess that privilege. Far from being an edict of political correctness, identity politics asks us to see the world as it actually is, and more than that, it demands that we equalize the playing field.

Those who claim that identity politics is counterproductive and divisive often seek to build movements on that which they claim we all have in common, and cite economic status as an equalizer that everyone can get behind. Yet in an economy that is racialized and gendered, such notions are wishful thinking at best, and willful ignorance at worst.

The Consequences of a False Debate

The fight over identity politics is a false one; it forces false choices and even worse, inauthentic ones. Conservative movements have identified race and gender in particular as arenas where neutrality is strategic to maintain white, heterosexual, male, cisgendered power, at the expense of everyone who does not occupy those social positions. They have identified that inequality resulting from race and gender, and other social indicators that have economic implications, is best left undiscussed, lest it be uncovered that there are people that benefit from the disenfranchisement and oppression of marginalized communities. Simultaneously, the same forces inside of liberal and progressive movements have adopted the same stance, using talking points from conservatives to justify their resistance to upending oppressions other than that resulting from economic inequality.

This, of course, has consequences for progressive movements and civic engagement efforts. A refusal to acknowledge inequities inside of a movement almost guarantees that those inequities will not be addressed in any substantive way, which guarantees that the lives of those who depend on transformative social movements the most will not change in any substantive way.

We should be concerned about this because it is, in fact, exactly the agenda that our opposition hopes to achieve—no real substantive changes in the relationships of power, or their outcomes.
•	1.Combahee River Collective, “The Combahee River Collective Statement,” reproduced in Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Rutgers University Press, 1983.
•	2.Nikki Graf, Anna Brown, and Eileen Patten, “The narrowing, but persistent, gender pay gap,” Pew Research Center, March 22, 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/gender-pay-gap-facts
•	3.Jaime M. Grant, Lisa A. Mottet, Justin Tanis, Jack Harrison, Jody L. Herman, and Mara Keisling, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2011. See further Mara Santilli, “What the Wage Gap Looks Like for Transgender and Gender Non-Binary People,” Brit + Co, December 11, 2018, www.brit.co/what-the-wage-gap-looks-like-for-transgender-and-gender-non-... and Ishani Nath, “Yes, Men Get Paid More than Women...But What About Trans Women?,” Flare, February 8, 2018, www.flare.com/news/trans-women-pay-equity.
Related Area of Work: 
Commissioned Paper Series 2019

Summary: 

       a-What was the author's thesis?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

       b-What Proof did he/she offer?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 	c-Info you found Interesting and worthy of sharing
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 3. Critique: Did you agree/disagree with the author's thesis? 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Individual Harkness Research: Fill in the gaps of what you need to know to fully participate. The research you plan to share includes…
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. When I asked my Parents/Guardians/Adult in my life the deliberation question, they told me....
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Question(s) I still have AFTER my research I am hoping my group can help me understand includes…
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9. What sort of evidence could the other side of the argument introduce that might change my mind? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10. Continuum: Create a continuum of where the class stands based upon your pre-deliberation thoughts.  

11. Collaborative Discussion: Do not be beholden to any pre-deliberation view and concentrate on what questions you have and what arguments you need to hear to change your mind. Your group should discuss each person’s opinion about the deliberation question, what they think should occur, what you need to know to change your mind; focusing on the following:
•	Listen carefully to what others are saying.
•	Understand and analyze what others are saying.
•	Use relevant background knowledge, including life experiences, in a logical way.
•	Remain engaged and respectful when controversy arises.
•	Speak and encourage others to speak.
•	Refer to the reading to support your ideas.

12. Deliberation Tasks/Questions
   a). Create a working definition of identity politics 
   b). What are the pros of identity politics/what benefits do we see
   c). What are the cons of identity politics/what negative consequences do we see 
   d). Is identity politics furthering the political polarization in America or creating recognition of disenfranchised groups 
      encouraging a more equal society?  
   e). Does identity politics allow for demagogues to build electoral coalitions through election promises to certain groups over  
      others or does it allow historically disenfranchised groups to get a “piece of the pie” and politicians finally recognizing    
   f). What role, if any, should identity politics be used when determining vaccinations, college admittance, etc.? 	   
   g). What is Critical Race Theory and what role, if any, do you believe it should play in school curriculum, governmental 
      orientation programs or job training, etc.?
   h). If you were a school board, would you allow in your school affinity groups and/or the class Politics of Identity

13. Reflection: Fill out the Self-Evaluation Rubric and answer reflection questions thoroughly and deep reflection and rate discuss the deliberation process. 

14. Alternative Assignment (if Absent on Harkness Deliberation Day): Complete Steps 1-9 and 13 (rubric associated with research and self-evaluation as well as all appropriate Reflection Questions) and a persuasive essay answering a-c and any of d-h 

Self-Evaluation Rubric 
DIRECTIONS: Read through each category and its criteria. Complete either or both columns to give yourself an accurate grade.  

In the LEFT column: Place a check plus next to those you completed in an exceptional manner, a check plus/check mark if it was only completed well, a check mark next to the criteria in which you completed okay, a check mark/check minus if it was completed okay but not great, a and a check minus that you completed but not very well, and place an X next to the criteria not completed at all. 

In the RIGHT column: Place the appropriate grade in the space to the immediate left of EACH criteria required by determining those areas you performed or were lacking and based upon the point value listed. Place a N/A or “not applicable next to any criterion not required for your specific role. Average the points together in place that score in the “your estimate” blank. 

  ***Remember, a perfect grade should reflect perfect work and only be used when the work done had no deficiencies & could not have been performed any better.**      

•	PREPARATION AND RESEARCH (1-20): 								        
_____ _____Completed Chapter Notes from Textbook “Political Partisanship and Ideology” (pgs. 163-164)
_____ _____Listened to New York Times “Rabbit Hole” Podcast and took notes, completed a summary and review 
_____ _____Watched the Ted Talk Video: “Beware the Single Story” and took notes, completed a summary and review
_____ _____Read, highlighted/Underlined, commented, emoji-ed, and completed the review for “The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution”
_____ _____Read, highlighted/Underlined, commented, emoji-ed, and completed the review for “Identity Politics: Friend or Foe”
_____ _____Completed individual Research to fill in the gaps and questions you still had to be successful and an attribute in the Harkness
_____ _____Discussed with your friends and family the deliberation questions/tasks
_____ _____Researched discussed tradeoffs, stakeholders, etc and put a good faith effort into contacting governmental officials directly related to this 
_____ _____Completed all aspects of the packet to be prepared for the Harkness
_____ _____Attached and turned in Research Notes with rubric and other documents	                 	    
											          Your Average ______/25

•	CONTENT COVERED/PERSUASIVENESS/PARTICIPATION/OVERALL PERFORMANCE (1-15):
_____ _____Clearly outlined your position on the question proposed Arguments generated employed insight of the issue 
_____ _____Used Logos: Cited verifiable facts and used data/evidence to prove one’s case
_____ _____Got material across in a way that was informative and easily understood 
_____ _____Demonstrated Ethos: ability to establish credibility through a strong grasp of principles involved	
_____ _____Use of anecdotes was to reinforce NOT as sole rationale for position/ Pathos: or emotion was used appropriately and not primary focus _____ _____Did not propagate lies or false truths and your peers are generally smarter for your participation
_____ _____Did not simply echo the thoughts of others or make irrelevant comments   
_____ _____Utilized clarification questions to gain information 
_____ _____When asked a question, showed ability to think on feet providing clear main arguments to original posit	
_____ _____Was a Frequent Participant but did not hog the conversation				
_____ _____Performed to the best of your abilities and was an attribute, not detriment to this simulation
_____ _____Felt good about my performance afterward and my role in the Harkness	         
									       			  Your Average ______/15

•	RESPECTFUL/RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR and REFLECTION AND SELF-EVALUATION (1-10):
_____ _____Professional and Attentively listened by looking at speakers
_____ _____Followed proceedings- taking notes when necessary (Attach your notes to this self-evaluation)
_____ _____Was Respectful to Peers both verbally and through mannerisms; Avoided ad hominin attacks 
_____ _____Let others speak before you spoke again (general rule to follow: everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice 								  and at least 3 people spoke before I spoke a third time)
_____ _____Did not interrupt peers or tell them “they could not argue that”
_____ _____Had a positive Attitude during Harkness and Played Well with Others 	      
_____ _____Read and followed direction when completing rubric: Placed the appropriate mark next to EACH category
_____ _____Did not just use whole numbers and only gave yourself a 10 if your performance was PEFERCT and a model for future classes
_____ _____Answered reflection questions with MINIMALLY three sentences for each question       
											   Your Average ______/10

					TOTAL___________/50							                     
Reflection Questions: 
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Learning involves some permanency.  The discussion needs legs. After the Harkness and completing your self-evaluation, re-cap the conversation with your parent(s), guardian(s), adult(s) in your life about what you heard and reflect deeply on what was discussed  Answer each question and return with your rubric.    

QUESTION #1. How has your (and if time, your loved ones) initial thoughts on the subject and opinion questions evolved and/or become more nuanced through this exercise?
QUESTION #2. List and describe the most meaningful idea(s), concept(s), and/or principle(s) learned through this project.
QUESTION #3. Explain what you did well on the project. Explain what could you could have done differently and would change if you were to complete this project again?  

QUESTION #4. What did you like and dislike about the Harkness? What can be done to improve the process to make it more meaningful i.e. more time, rubric changes, (for example, is point value/score for this activity, criterion required, were the point values in each section reasonable), fewer links or more links/info to research, etc.? How would you rank the value of the project (1-10)? Justify the ranking. 

QUESTION #5. OVERALL PERFORMANCE: How would you rate your overall project performance (1-10) based upon your preparation, knowledge and understanding of the issue, and performance in regards to your prior projects and your peers? Justify the ranking. Did the rubric give you the correct grade?  Explain.  If the overall score determined through the rubric is different from the grade you believe you deserve explain why and the grade you believe is warranted.