Identity Politics

Can the Left Take Back Identity Politics?

by Umut Özkırımlı

Recovering the liberatory potential of identity politics means going back to the term's source—the Combahee River Collective—and recognizing its radical roots and embrace of coalition-building and politics.

What Has Black Lives Matter Achieved? A New Critique from the Left

by Jay Caspian Kang

Political scientist Cedric Johnson argues in a new book that protest movements have fixated on racial identity at the expense of making a broad critique of how policing defends an unequal and exploitative society and building a bigger coalition for change. Writer Jay Caspian Kang puts this argument in the context of debates about identity politics from the center to the left.

The Crisis of the Intellectuals

by Ibram X. Kendi

A dire health crisis forced the author to ask what his intellectual work was ultimately for. Intellectuals more broadly need a similar push from the dire state of democracy, and should be assured that when they face pushback about being "illiberal" or "presentist" or violating the traditions of their discipline, they're on the right track. 

The Defeat of Identity Politics

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò argues that the rhetoric of diversity has allowed an "elite capture" of racial justice movements that strips those movements of the impulse to transform society. Historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reviews his new book of essays.

‘Despised’ Review: The Left and the Working Class

by Jonathan Rose

Historian Jonathan Rose reviews a book by British firefighter and "left conservative" Paul Embery which identifies the collapse of both working class communities and open debate in Britain as factors in the demise of Labour as a political force. 

Trump’s Presidency May Be Over. The Effects of Trumpism on Campus are Not

The Trump presidency has raised issues about the extent of racial resentment in White America, the significance of identity politics, and the place of intellectual discovery and academic research in American life that are a long way from resolution. 

The Wages of Whiteness (Review Essay)

Hari Kunzru's review essay examines the current vogue for white antiracism (and antiracist training) through the history of whiteness as a political and academic concept, concluding that many  of the most popular books and multicultural pieties strip the idea of its structural elements and reduce it to a question of personal purification. 

‘Anti-Blackness and Classroom Racism’: Senators Condemn Professor’s Repeated Use of Racial Slur

The art history professor used the racial slur while writing the full name of the group N.W.A. and when discussing one of its albums.

Identicide: How demographic shifts can rip a country apart

by Monica Duffy Toft

Internal strife, perhaps civil war or collapse often precedes a decisive demographic shift.

Mark Lilla Is Getting Identity Politics All Wrong

by Joshua Zeitz

Appealing to voters' tribal instincts is a time-honored American tradition. Because it works.

Mark Lilla’s book against identity politics continues to draw the fire of liberals

by Jim Sleeper

One line of attack: He’s playing into the hands of a well-funded conservative campaign to highlight examples of political correctness that distract us from real injustices.

Another Kind of “Identity Politics”

by John Fea

Is Mark Lilla right that liberals need to get beyond identity politics?  And just what do we mean by identity politics anyway?

People are still talking about historian Mark Lilla’s NYT op ed 2 weeks after it was published

Lilla, a historian at Columbia, argued that the Democratic Party has lost its way by focusing on identity politics.