Identity Politics is when we represent the specific interests of social groups to which a clump of people identifies. Identity Politics represents something people 'are', rather than something that people believe. It stops discussion by creating an us, and a them. We think in categories. Reality is a lot messier than that. The powerful use of Identity Politics is when a group has been oppressed. When that bit of the identity has been used to hold them down. Forming groups around that, allows that group to rise up. The challenge is that those people are far more complicated than that. The oversimplification that was used to oppress is not the thing that defines them. I look forward to an evolving politics of listening. A gradual dismantling of the borders between us and them. That doesn't make us all the same. It does provide choice. A politics of agreed ground rules that empower us to build complicated, interlinked, interdependent, fuzzy, dynamic, real identities. Identity is just a story. Let's make it a good one.
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