Identity Politics Quotes

“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“For years, I declined to fill in the form for my Senate press credential that asked me to state my 'race,' unless I was permitted to put 'human.' The form had to be completed under penalty of perjury, so I could not in conscience put 'white,' which is not even a color let alone a 'race,' and I sternly declined to put 'Caucasian,' which is an exploded term from a discredited ethnology. Surely the essential and unarguable core of King's campaign was the insistence that pigmentation was a false measure: a false measure of mankind (yes, mankind) and an inheritance from a time of great ignorance and stupidity and cruelty, when one drop of blood could make you 'black.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Dale was a stockbroker at Stryker & Marshall, one of the biggest brokerage firms in America. He always wore a suit when he went out in public, even when he wasn’t working, because there was always that odd chance he might cross paths with a client, or a possible future client. But regardless of clients, it assisted in reinforcing his pompous mentality that he was superior to others. He flaunted his suits and wore them like they were a piece of himself, an outer shell that created a buffer zone between his vainglorious identity and the peasants that made up most of the population. So naturally he flinched when he heard Jeremy threatening the cleanliness of his suit, his image.”
― Jasun Ether, The Beasts of Success

“You and I are the remains of an unfulfilled legacy, heirs to a kingdom of stolen identities and ragged confusion.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

“People even said I was a racist because I shot black bank robbers at the beginning of Dirty Harry. So, first I’m labeled right-wing. Then I’m a racist. Now it’s macho or male chauvinism. It’s a whole number nowadays to make people feel guilty on different levels. It doesn’t bother me because I know where the fuck I am on the planet and I don’t give a shit.”
― Clint Eastwood, Clint Eastwood: Interviews

“We must not be anything other than what we are.”
― Maaza Mengiste, Beneath the Lion's Gaze

“...we have to be aware of the power and importance of organizing not just around identity, but the materiality of daily life, which still, in many respects, is racialized for people of color. You build from that, but you have a grander social vision that transcends it and recognizes the strengths and limitations that are drawn from the particularity of identity.”
― Manning Marable

“An important ethical function of identity politics, in this context, is to highlight that obstacles to the self-development of individuals, and to the formation and exercise of their agency, emerge in complex cultural and psychic forms, as well as through more familiar kinds of socio-economic inequality.”
― Michael Kenny, The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference

“this is the conversation I’ve been having since the 2016 election ended and liberals and progressives have been scrambling to figure out what went wrong. What was missing from the left’s message that left so many people unenthusiastic about supporting a Democratic candidate, especially against Donald Trump? So far, a large group of people (mostly white men paid to pontificate on politics and current events) seem to have landed on this: we, the broad and varied group of Democrats, Socialists, and Independents known as ‘the left,’ focused on ‘identity politics’ too much. We focused on the needs of black people, trans people, women, Latinx people. All this specialized focus divided people and left out working-class white men. That is the argument, anyways.”
― Ijeoma Oluo

“The cultural obsession with purity originates in the evolutionary struggle to avoid pollution. All animals are torn between the need to try new food and the fear of being poisoned. Evolution therefore equipped animals with both curiosity and the capacity to feel disgust on coming into contact with something toxic or otherwise dangerous. Politicians and prophets have learned how to manipulate these disgust mechanisms.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

“The assumption that being gay or black necessarily harms the self-worth of all who fit this category has a patronizing dimension, because it neglects consideration of the agency that persons exercise in respect of imposed identity.”
― Michael Kenny, The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference

“In modern societies, some members of ethnic minority groups do not want to feel compelled to heed the voices of their communities when participating as citizens.”
― Michael Kenny, The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference

“Identity politics not only contract the multiple components of our identities to one: they essentialize that component over which we have the least control.”
― Susan Neiman, Left Is Not Woke

“The fear of course is that in denying or refusing complicity in the marginalization of 'black' writers, I ended up on the very distant and very 'other' side of a line that is imaginary at best. I didn't write as an act of testimony or social indignation (though all writing in some way is just that) and I did not write out of a so-called family tradition of oral storytelling. I never tried to set anybody free, never tried to paint the next real and true picture of the life of my people, never had any people whose picture I knew well enough to paint. Perhaps if I had written in the time immediately following Reconstruction, I would have written to elevate the station of my fellow oppressed.
But the irony was beautiful. I was a victim of racism by virtue of my failing to acknowledge racial difference and by failing to have my art be defined as an exercise in racial self-expression. So, I would not be economically oppressed because of writing a book that fell in line with the very books I deemed racist. And I would have to wear the mask of the person I was expected to be.”
― Percival Everett, Erasure

“He leaned forward, his voice softening. “I get that representation, identity, and history are important, but when you hold on too tightly to something, any fault becomes a fault line, the very thing the world will use to bring you down.” He paused, his gaze shifting between Regina and me. “Whatever happens in this archaeological battle of sexes, the fact remains that the world is unfair, and I give you my word that history, whatever it may be, won’t stop me from being your ally and trying to fix, not the past we can’t control, but the present.”
― Amalia Rose, Decoded

“[The right-wing populist] narrative centres around division: dividing the world into the virtuous and non-virtuous. Convincing an electoral majority that they are among the virtuous, and that the non-virtuous - that is, free trade, China, migrants and refugees, and those who would impose meaningful action on climate change - need to be dealt with via tough policies. This right-wing populism turbocharges identity and grievance politics and weaponises it through the amplifying support of both social media and elements of the traditional mainstream media. (p.20-21)”
― Chris Bowen, On Charlatans

“The unique epistemic role of the university in our culture was to set up conditions where students could learn how to bring arguments and evidence to a question, and to teach them not to project convictions derived from tribal loyalties onto the evaluation of evidence on testable questions. The rise of identity politics should have been recognized by university faculties as a threat to their ability to teach decoupled argumentation and evidence evaluation. As a monistic ideology (Tetlock 1986), where all values come from a single perspective, identity politics entangles many testable propositions with identity-based convictions. It fosters myside bias by reversing Kahan’s (2016) prescription—by transforming positions on policy-relevant facts into badges of group-based convictions. One of the most depressing social trends of the last few decades has been universities becoming proponents of identity politics—a doctrine that attacks the heart of their intellectual mission.”
― Keith E. Stanovich, The Bias That Divides Us: The Science and Politics of Myside Thinking

“The appeal to identity is capitalism’s secret sauce.”
― Todd McGowan, Universality and Identity Politics

“[M]any DEI initiatives, as they function currently, neither serve those they are supposedly intended for, nor do they make any meaningful changes in the structure of the society at large. Instead, the way I see many DEI initiatives working in this country…is by maintaining the status quo in several ways: first, most diverse people I see in different places are tokens and are only allowed any form of power or contributions upon the condition of proving that they are not there to rock the boat or be a threat to the upper powers, who are usually selected privileged whites. Second, there are deliberate and malicious efforts to tokenize diverse people who are not only incompetent, but also complicit to almost make it look like that truly qualified diverse people don’t exist (far from true), as well as to give the majority of white people the impression that they are losing their jobs and privileges to people who are not even qualified or deserving, hence creating further bitterness and divide in the society. In sum, the way the DEI initiatives work is neither benefiting the truly qualified and competent diverse people who could change the structure and the system, nor are they helping white people truly see the value of different perspectives and different ways of thinking, sensing, and doing that enrich this world.

[From “The Trump Age: Critical Questions” published on CounterPunch on June 23, 2023]”
― Louis Yako

“In today's world, we find ourselves surrounded by an abundance of identities that we can choose and embody. The world we live in allows individuals to explore and express their unique perspectives, experiences, and social affiliations. But back in the 1980s and 1990s of Somerset and the South West it was a stark contrast. Society seemed more homogeneous, with limited recognition and exploration of diverse identities. We’d been boxed in and characterised by a more constrained and traditional understanding of identity. Societal norms largely dictated what was considered acceptable, and there was often little room for deviation from these norms.”
― Pete Trainor, Electrasy: Calling All The Dreamers

“The Dean insists that we add creationism and crystal theory and spiritualism to the curriculum." ...
"We told the Dean that there was no objective evidence for any of that crap. You know what he said?" ...
"No. What?"
"He said that the alleged objectivity of materialist science was an invention of heterosexual, white males, so we shouldn't use that as a basis for judgement.”
― Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle; Mike Flynn, Fallen Angels

“The moment a nation becomes a deity, it starts demanding purges.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“...it's perhaps time to admit that our perennial call to "work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation" has become something of an empty shibboleth. The petty, tribal, precriptive, censorious, identity-obsessed and philistine culture the SNP have created has left many older centrist heids reluctant to speak up over matters of simple common sense and public concern, conceding many of them not just to the right (with whom they are now occasionally driven to make common cause), but - far more dangerously - to the self-declared racists, sexists, homophobes and fascists who should represent our common enemy. The SNP are also, in their current incarnation, poor stewards of the independence dream. As we enter a pre-war era of economic uncertainty and shifting alliances, rediscovering it will be a far more sober and adult task than we have previously had to face. We first must decide what it is we mean by "better nation". It will have to be one with considerably more courage, genuine inclusivity and stomach for honest and civil debate than we currently demonstrate. It will require us to tackle the kinds of broad disadvantage that animate the electorate, as well as those narrow causes which excite our political and institutional leaders. It will require an Enlightenment-style revival of an artistic and intellectual meritocracy, one which can actively connect and draw on the talents of an increasingly diverse but distinctively Scottish society.”
― Don Paterson, Irish Pages, Vol. 12, No. 2: Scotland

“Die israelische Gesellschaft ist schon lange ein schillerndes Mosaik zwischen zwei Polen –Demokratie und Religion. Wie könnte es auch anders sein mit einem Volk voller Widersprüche: Säkulare, Traditionsbewusste, Religiöse, Modern-Orthodoxe, Ultraorthodoxe, Siedler. Und alles dazwischen. Mit den Palästinensern Israels. Mit Juden, Muslimen, Christen, Drusen, Baha’i … Viele dieser Gruppen haben ihren eigenen Lebensstil, spezielle Überzeugungen und kollidierende Vorstellungen von den wichtigsten Bereichen gesellschaftlichen Zusammenlebens. Von Ehe und Scheidung, Wehrpflicht, Geschlechtertrennung, Bildung, Toleranz für Minderheiten, Einstellung zu den Palästinensern und zur Zwei-Staaten-Lösung. Und so viel mehr. Dieses Mosaik aus Widersprüchen hält nur mit Kompromissen. Und einer Führung, die das Volk der Israelis mehr oder weniger zusammenbringt. Ansonsten kommt es zu gefährlichen Rissen. Wenn ich heute auf Israel blicke, sehe ich vor allem ein Land, das sich von innen zerreißt. Menschen, die mit ihren Wurzeln um sich schlagen, als seien sie Waffen.”
― Sarah Levy, Kein anderes Land: Aufzeichnungen aus Israel

“Survival birthed Man.
Identity divided him”
― Ramkumar S P, The Endless Pendulum: Democracy, Right Wing, Left Wing, and The Sacred Conflict of Power

“It is easier to keep a democracy alive than to resurrect it from the grave”
― Ramkumar S P, The Endless Pendulum: Democracy, Right Wing, Left Wing, and The Sacred Conflict of Power

“When social workers don't get trained specifically on ICWA, they miss opportunities to impact Native children's lives because they aren't challenged on their biases and assumptions." Jamie walks around the room, gesturing and emphasizing key words. "Like, not asking whether ICWA applies because the child doesn't "look" Native to them. Or assuming that if a child isn't enrolled in a tribe, ICWA doesn't apply to them. The law applies to children who are enrolled and those who are eligible to be enrolled.”
― Angeline Boulley, Sisters in the Wind

“Our only true identity is that of a steward. Everything else is a costume. The more ornate the mask, the more fragmented the soul beneath it. To save the world, don’t protect your ego—plant something. Heal something. Love something. Serve something. Or be still. The garden is waiting.”
― Jason Daniel Chaplin

“Intellectual life on American campuses has, over the course of the past half century, been fundamentally reshaped by the ascendancy of the “identity synthesis.” Inspired by postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory, a new generation of scholars succeeded in welding a diverse set of influences into one coherent ideology.

Despite the real variation within and between different academic departments, this synthesis is characterized by a widespread adherence to seven fundamental propositions: a deep skepticism about objective truth inspired by Michel Foucault; the use of a form of discourse analysis for explicitly political ends inspired by Edward Said; an embrace of essentialist categories of identity inspired by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; a proud pessimism about the state of Western societies as well as a preference for public policies that explicitly make how someone is treated depend on the group to which they belong, both inspired by Derrick Bell; and an embrace of an intersectional logic for political activism as well as a deep-seated skepticism about the ability of members of different identity groups to understand each other, both associated with Kimberlé Crenshaw.”
― Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

“One way to make sure that white and Black Americans have similar levels of wealth would be for society to get a lot more equal, lifting poor Black people out of poverty. But another way to make sure that white and Black Americans have similar wealth would be for a small number of Black people to become extremely rich.

Marxists like Reed are aware of the fact that the latter course of action would ask much less of the rich and powerful, allowing them to keep most of their wealth. This, they worry, makes it much more likely that societies will try to achieve equity through such comparatively cosmetic changes that don’t actually reduce overall inequality. And if America manages to create a few dozen Black billionaires while millions of Americans of all races continue to live in poverty, they conclude, precious little is gained for most people: “The disparitarian ideal is that blacks and other nonwhites should be represented on every rung on the ladder of economic hierarchy in rough proportion to their representation in the general population.” But “a society where making black and white people equal means making them equally subordinate to a . . . ruling class is not a more just society, just a differently unjust one.”
― Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time