“identity politics and class politics” stands out, too. Dude the working class have identities that matter to us. The people from minority groups whose safety and material interests you deride as “identity politics” are overwhelmingly working class. You know why African Americans scabbed at various times in the American labour movement? Yeah.
It’s so infuriating to see groups willing to publicly identify as ML while just having the worst, most idealist and reactionary ideas possible. Stop making the rest of us look bad>:(
This is probably why, despite constantly saying that trans rights is ‘bobo decadence’ or whatever, I’ve never seen class reductionist types criticise pinkwashing (aka imperialists saying that Muslims/ Africans/ Chinese/ South Americans hate gays so we should kill them). Like that is probably the only time where the “LGBTQ rights is a distraction/ liberal propaganda” ever made some amount of sense. But this never seems to come up in any of their examples, likely because they also see decolonialism/ anti-white supremacy as nothing more but useless race-based identity politics.
Tell me of this is a bad take, but I criticise identity politics often because liberal parties use it to distract people from class politics. I agree that it’s good to address how class inequality impacts different minority groups. But I see the phrase ‘identity politics’ used more often to refer to how liberals hide behind diversity to further capital interest.
I don’t know what your criticism of identity politics looks like so I really can’t say. But I’m of the opinion that the problem with liberal idpol is the liberalism, not the idpol. Most often, in my experience, people who complain about idpol while talking about how the bourgeoisie use it to divide the proletariat are actually just part of that division. For example, it’s not BLM that divides the working class, it’s the racism that BLM is a response to. The kind of dickhead who complains that BLM is dividing the working class is just propagating that division, because BLM is in fact a response to real, material inequalities that are used to split the proletariat. If someone signals that they think BLM is in some way a waste of time, they are making it clear that black comrades aren’t safe around them, and therefore they are an impediment to class solidarity.
I’m a white dude in my 40s and not terrifically well read so anyone who spots a problem with my position please by all means weigh in.
I suppose that when I think of identity politics, I think of people who say we should listen to jewish people about how antizionism is antisemitism, (white) trans people about how everyone should’ve voted for kamala holocaust, zionist Iranians about how we should celebrate western interference in Iran etc.
But maybe that isn’t actually identity politics and more so deference politics.
Oh no, that’s 100% liberal idpol. The problem, as I say, is the liberalism - the deference to liberal institutions and alignment with the global hegemon, in this case. But the identity politics in and of itself isn’t the problem. The problem isn’t “caring about antisemitism”, it’s misidentifying what is or is not antisemitic and aligning with the interests of the bourgeoisie. Where antisemitism happens we should still be concerned about it (though we should also be aware of its limited impact compared to Islamophobia).
“identity politics and class politics” stands out, too. Dude the working class have identities that matter to us. The people from minority groups whose safety and material interests you deride as “identity politics” are overwhelmingly working class. You know why African Americans scabbed at various times in the American labour movement? Yeah.
This is what Marxism without developed theories about imperialism and colonialism and world-systems gets you.
It’s so infuriating to see groups willing to publicly identify as ML while just having the worst, most idealist and reactionary ideas possible. Stop making the rest of us look bad>:(
Every single “communist” I have met who is like this has been from a comfortable area of Europe. Curious.
This is probably why, despite constantly saying that trans rights is ‘bobo decadence’ or whatever, I’ve never seen class reductionist types criticise pinkwashing (aka imperialists saying that Muslims/ Africans/ Chinese/ South Americans hate gays so we should kill them). Like that is probably the only time where the “LGBTQ rights is a distraction/ liberal propaganda” ever made some amount of sense. But this never seems to come up in any of their examples, likely because they also see decolonialism/ anti-white supremacy as nothing more but useless race-based identity politics.
Tell me of this is a bad take, but I criticise identity politics often because liberal parties use it to distract people from class politics. I agree that it’s good to address how class inequality impacts different minority groups. But I see the phrase ‘identity politics’ used more often to refer to how liberals hide behind diversity to further capital interest.
Liberal/chud identity politics also lacks proper analysis, it’s all just vibes based
I don’t know what your criticism of identity politics looks like so I really can’t say. But I’m of the opinion that the problem with liberal idpol is the liberalism, not the idpol. Most often, in my experience, people who complain about idpol while talking about how the bourgeoisie use it to divide the proletariat are actually just part of that division. For example, it’s not BLM that divides the working class, it’s the racism that BLM is a response to. The kind of dickhead who complains that BLM is dividing the working class is just propagating that division, because BLM is in fact a response to real, material inequalities that are used to split the proletariat. If someone signals that they think BLM is in some way a waste of time, they are making it clear that black comrades aren’t safe around them, and therefore they are an impediment to class solidarity.
I’m a white dude in my 40s and not terrifically well read so anyone who spots a problem with my position please by all means weigh in.
I suppose that when I think of identity politics, I think of people who say we should listen to jewish people about how antizionism is antisemitism, (white) trans people about how everyone should’ve voted for kamala holocaust, zionist Iranians about how we should celebrate western interference in Iran etc.
But maybe that isn’t actually identity politics and more so deference politics.
Oh no, that’s 100% liberal idpol. The problem, as I say, is the liberalism - the deference to liberal institutions and alignment with the global hegemon, in this case. But the identity politics in and of itself isn’t the problem. The problem isn’t “caring about antisemitism”, it’s misidentifying what is or is not antisemitic and aligning with the interests of the bourgeoisie. Where antisemitism happens we should still be concerned about it (though we should also be aware of its limited impact compared to Islamophobia).