On Identification Politics (Martin Luther King Day, 2023)

This Martin Luther King Day, I made a decision to adapt one thing I wrote as a part of an extended piece on racism. The piece was written primarily for white folks to mirror on, as a result of I can solely communicate from my expertise as a white male.

I’ve encountered quite a few (white) Buddhist practitioners who argue strongly in opposition to “determine politics,” claiming that it’s basically against the Buddha’s educating.

However what’s “identification politics”? In The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Concept, Satya Mohanty, a professor of English, whose specialties embrace colonial and postcolonial research, describes it as “joint political motion by people who really feel themselves united by membership in a marginalized social class (ethnicity, gender, class, faith) that offers them frequent political pursuits.”

By that definition, the civil rights motion, Black Lives Matter, the Girls’s Suffrage Motion, and homosexual satisfaction are all examples of identification politics.

Distorted Understandings of Identification Politics

Typically what religious practitioners argue in opposition to may be very totally different from what Mohanty describes. For instance, in a web based dialogue one Western Buddhist said that identification politics signifies that “a very powerful factor about an individual is the group to which they belong, not their individuality.” One other, having stated one thing very comparable, went on so as to add, “identification politics is about classifying folks into teams, and praising them, criticizing or condemning them due to their particular group identities.”

Evidently the extra opposed persons are to identification politics, the extra totally different their definition of it’s from the educational one. The extra opposed they’re to it, the extra they embrace damaging attributes of their definitions. Typically what they describe not solely doesn’t correspond to formal definitions, however to what we see occurring on the bottom — within the organizations that marketing campaign for rights for marginalized teams or within the particular person lives of people that assist these teams.

For instance, I’ve by no means come throughout a person from a minority ethnic group who says that a very powerful factor about them is their ethnicity. Often they regard a very powerful issues about them as their being a mum or dad, or being a partner, and so forth. Often folks really feel affinities for different groupings in addition to their ethnicity, based mostly on class, faith, career, and so on. These are additionally an vital a part of their sense of who they’re.

Normally most individuals don’t go round obsessing about what race they’re. Our race is one thing we grow to be conscious of after we’re pressured to, and one of many methods this generally occurs is when somebody behaves in a racist approach towards us. A Black or Asian individual being requested by a white individual, “However the place do you actually come from?”, or being stopped by the police for the second time in every week is pressured into an consciousness of their ethnicity. The extra unfair or discriminatory a society is, the extra these on the receiving finish are to have to concentrate on their ethnicity.

Additionally, solely a tiny minority of individuals in teams which have been denied their rights are set on claiming that one group is inherently higher than others. Individuals from ethnic minorities nearly all need equality.

There are two particular considerations with identification politics within the feedback I quoted above.

Concern 1: Identification Politics Subsumes Individuality

This primary is that individuals will subsume their individuality in group membership, presumably ceasing to assume for themselves and as a substitute having a tribal identification. Tribalism is a typical downside with different political actions. It’s actually not distinctive to the scenario that marginalized teams discover themselves in. And it’s actually not inevitable when campaigning for equal rights that individuals will undertake group-think, any greater than occurs in different political actions. I’ve but to see anybody arguing in opposition to identification politics produce any proof {that a} lack of individuality is peculiar to individuals who have been discriminated in opposition to, who level to that discrimination as fallacious, and who name for change.

Observing that you’re a member of a bunch that has been marginalized or oppressed could or could not contain tribalism. Tribalism entails seeing one’s personal tribe pretty much as good and different tribes as dangerous. However the goal of identification politics is to not grow to be dominant over different teams, it’s to realize the equality that’s been denied. The group doing the oppressing isn’t often seen as being inherently dangerous, however as behaving in an unskillful approach.

The purpose of demanding equality is to strain or encourage the oppressive group to surrender unskillful behaviors and to deal with others as equals. This is able to not be potential if the oppressing group was inherently evil. In truth it acknowledges that the oppressive group is inherently redeemable.

In fact persons are folks, and it’s inevitable that some individuals who embrace identification politics could have unskillful attitudes in the direction of teams that oppress them. The stunning factor for me is how uncommon that is. That oppressed folks typically need equality fairly than vengeance is a testomony to the excessive stage of fundamental goodness that exists within the common human coronary heart.

Concern 2: Assumptions of Superiority and Inferiority

The second particular concern is that these working towards identification politics see themselves as being higher than different teams due to their standing as victims of oppression. I’ve recognized loads of people who should not minorities who carry a way that the world is in opposition to them, and who appear to determine as victims, gaining some sense of “specialness” from that. And little question there are some folks from marginalized teams who equally cling to a way of grievance and victimization. However the important thing factor is that discrimination and oppression do exist, and the vital factor is to create a fairer world. To search for issues responsible in oppressed people is hardly useful, particularly if one isn’t additionally putting much more emphasis on criticizing these doing the oppressing.

Each these fears — individuality being subsumed by group identities, and assumptions of superiority and inferiority — could generally, in some people, be true. However they’re not inherent in what identification politics is.

These explicit risks are doubtlessly there each time you take part in a bunch enterprise. For instance I would describe myself as a Buddhist and grow to be a part of a religious neighborhood. And in consequence I would determine that my identification as a member of that religious neighborhood is a very powerful factor about me. I would tackle concepts with out excited about them. I would agree with the viewpoints of leaders fairly than considering for myself. Being a Buddhist can undermine your individuality in favor of a bunch identification. And naturally I would think about my chosen group to be the most effective Buddhist group, and Buddhism typically to be higher than different religions.

Being a Buddhist is usually a observe of “identification politics” on this distorted sense. But it surely’s clear we don’t must fall prey to these traps. We could be Buddhist and in addition keep our individuality and never get caught up in what Buddhism calls “superiority conceit.”

I discover myself questioning how people who find themselves discriminated in opposition to due to their ethnicity, pores and skin shade, or gender might presumably discover equality with out first recognizing that they’re a part of a bunch that’s topic to discrimination, after which spotlight this discrimination and demand equality. That is how change occurs. Individuals figuring out themselves as a part of a bunch that’s discriminated in opposition to is a obligatory step towards equality.

White Identification Politics

The considerations  that your membership of a selected racial group is a very powerful factor about you, and the idea that your racial group is superior to the bulk racial group that’s oppressing you, are actually a really correct description of racism.

And it strikes me that it’s white individuals who have traditionally been most obsessed about their ethnicity and the ethnicity of others. In different phrases, the commonest type of “identification politics” (in a damaging sense) could also be white identification politics. This isn’t traditional identification politics, since white folks as an entire should not an oppressed minority, though many have seen themselves because the victims, or potential victims of different races, who had been “the white man’s burden,” in Kipling’s phrases.

White racists see themselves as being particular due to their whiteness. This sense of specialness provides them a way of superiority in comparison with different teams.

It ought to go with out saying that not all white folks actively oppress or hate different races, however this perspective of superiority is quite common.

“The Most Essential Factor A few Particular person”

It was white individuals who invented (and stored redefining) the idea of whiteness.

Whiteness was the “a very powerful factor about an individual” when the Supreme Courtroom determined that black folks couldn’t be thought of residents. An important factor about an individual was their race when it got here to many aspects of life, from who you could possibly marry as to whether you could possibly drink from a selected water fountain.

Even right this moment, an individual’s whiteness or non-whiteness is commonly a very powerful factor about for an employer in terms of contemplating them for a job. Research present that résumés submitted with “white names” (e.g. Ryan Jones) usually tend to obtain replies than an identical résumés with “black names” (for instance Leroy Jones). For a policemen, a driver’s shade is commonly a very powerful factor about them in terms of deciding whether or not to drag them over. Black persons are stopped, on common, one and a half occasions extra usually than white drivers, though this discrepancy vanishes at night time, when it’s more durable to see a driver’s race.

Race, in lots of occasions and locations, has overwhelmingly been a very powerful factor about an individual, as judged by white folks. Not all white folks, to make sure, however sufficient in order that complete societies have had legal guidelines and constitutions based mostly on the idea of racial superiority, designed to maintain white folks in a superior social and financial place. That’s what racism is. It’s not merely disliking or resenting folks of one other race. It’s racial oppression.

This historical past of racism within the west is the historical past of white determine politics and of white assumptions of superiority resulting in racial oppression. The historical past of anti-racism is the historical past of resistance to white identification politics and white assumptions of superiority, and resistance to racial oppression.

As a result of attitudes of superiority by white folks have created oppression, ethnic minorities have been pressured to band collectively to guard themselves and demand equal rights. That is  “identification politics.” And that is what some white folks declare is a nasty factor. These (white) folks not often discuss white assumptions of superiority, and the way they create the necessity for identification politics.

Martin Luther King’s Dream

Buddhist critics of identification politics (or their very own distorted concept of it) usually level to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream: that sooner or later his youngsters can be judged by the contents of their characters fairly than the colour of their pores and skin. It generally appears it’s the one quote of his that they know.

They declare that King’s method was considered one of advocating “color-blindness.” They see this as very totally different from identification politics, which, in an instructional definition is “joint political motion by people who really feel themselves united by membership in a marginalized social class.” However what King did was exactly to take “joint political motion” with others who had been oppressed (together with white allies, after all).

Reaching equality, in King’s eyes, was to return about by “militancy” —  by struggling in opposition to the forces of racism.

King talked of a “Negro neighborhood” that existed in relation to “white folks.” He wasn’t color-blind:

We should rise to the majestic heights of assembly bodily pressure with soul pressure. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro neighborhood should not lead us to a mistrust of all white folks, for a lot of of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence right here right this moment, have come to appreciate that their future is tied up with our future.

He was very conscious the wrestle wanted white allies, however he additionally complained that even white so-called allies could possibly be a hindrance:

I’ve been gravely disillusioned with the white average. I’ve nearly reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s nice stumbling block in his stride towards freedom isn’t the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, however the white average, who’s extra dedicated to “order” than to justice; who prefers a damaging peace which is the absence of stress to a constructive peace which is the presence of justice; who consistently says: “I agree with you within the purpose you search, however I can not agree along with your strategies of direct motion.”

(By the way, King wrote the above phrases from jail, which is why I’ve used his mugshot as an illustration.)

Martin Luther King’s dream didn’t depend on folks merely on ignoring race or pretending that race doesn’t exist. It trusted folks (white and black) acknowledging oppression and truly standing up in opposition to it. For “white moderates” this meant attending to the purpose of caring concerning the plight of black folks sufficient to truly do one thing.

“The white average” could have had no hatred towards Black folks, however they had been, King noticed, extra hooked up to “order” than in seeing change come about. Change is at all times turbulent. It’s socially turbulent as a result of persons are pressured to protest. It’s personally turbulent as a result of we who don’t care sufficient have to beat our apathy and stand with the oppressed. And this implies accepting uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

Those that are in opposition to identification politics usually appear to resemble the white moderates King criticized. However then once more, many people do. As a white Dharma practitioner I really feel it’s my duty to acknowledge not simply energetic oppression and discrimination, however the passivity and complacency that enables oppression and discrimination to proceed to break the lives of complete communities of individuals. A few of that passivity is mine. I would like to acknowledge it, personal it, overcome it, and so grow to be actively against racism and an energetic supporter of those that are topic to racism.