There’s a big market out there for hot takes and sober literature challenging ‘identity politics.’
Many an ill-conceived book and article has been written on the topic.
I addressed some of this in one of my opening posts by drawing a distinction between identity politics and identitarianism. I still think this is very useful.
But I’ll admit to being a little crotchety on these issues. I’ve never had a high tolerance for nonsense, and whatever tolerance I’ve had in the past is declining. So this isn’t going to be a post about Mark Lilla’s Once and Future Liberal (it’s likely he never was). It isn’t going to be a post about “We are the Left” (they’re mostly a group of liberal or centrist Democrats, not leftists).
This is a post about Mistaken Identity, a book by Asad Haider!
What’s tricky about writing on identity politics is criticizing such politics without playing into the narratives of concern trolls, Trump supporters, and others who want to push the interests of members of marginalized groups off the political stage.
I don’t think Haider gets everything right in Mistaken Identity, but he gets that part right. That’s a good start.
There are two points Haider makes that I think warrant serious discussion.
1. Good and Bad Identity Politics
Haider takes care to distinguish between good and bad forms of identity politics. According to Haider, the good forms all fit in the category I call ‘identity politics,’ though not everything in that category is good. Many, but not all, of the bad forms forms fit in the category I call ‘identitarianism.’
The Good…
He starts with the Combahee River Collective as his prototype of the ‘good.’ Combahee was part of the broader anti-capitalist left. But it broke off from the broader left, temporarily, because of the rampant racism and sexism found in far too many left-wing movements.
Groups like Combahee focus on specific, and intersectional, oppression faced by certain groups (e.g., black women). They do this in order to develop and implement a better leftist vision. From this starting point, they build coalitions with other marginalized and oppressed groups.
Haider endorses this, as he should. So do I. I think Haider may overstate his case for how representative Combahee is of coalition-based identity politics movements. But that’s a relatively minor quibble. He’s got the big picture right.
…and the Bad
Haider talks about ‘bad’ identity politics from a couple of different angles.
He tells a depressing story about a local activist action in Santa Cruz. In Haider’s story, a certain segment of POC organizers crashed and burned a multi-racial coalition that leftist organizers had put together. They adopted a realist account of race to argue that anti-blackness is the superior explanatory force in society, over and above any other oppressive system.
This realist account is an example of one view that I’ve called ‘race-identitarianism’ (i.e., the reduction of politics to issues of race). It’s simply false, and it’s one example of the kind of ‘mistaken identity’ Haider has in mind.
Haider charges these organizers with using realism about race as a philosophical base from which to promote certain regressive interests. This includes the interests of upper middle income black Americans, wealthier black-owned nonprofits, and, ultimately, the mainstream and centrist wings of the Democratic Party.
‘Bad’ identity politics groups are ones that burn bridges and coalitions, ignore or oppose the anti-capitalist goals of the broader left, and act in such a way as to advance regressive interests. This is perhaps unwitting, but still impactful. The move is one that starts from the re-biologizing or reification of race and moves toward an inert politics of difference and inherently contradictory interests.
Haider is right that this occurs and we should oppose it. Activists who go that route are wrong.
2. The Relationship Between Class Politics and Racial Politics
I think Haider sees his main contribution in Mistaken Identity as one of linking class politics to racial politics.
Haider’s Thesis
He’s again a bit cagey on this point, but I think he has a relatively clear thesis. The thesis is that the struggle against white supremacism (and presumably also supremacism around other identities, e.g., male, heterosexual, et al.) is, simply in virtue of being a struggle against white supremacism (male supremacism, et al.), already thereby a left-wing struggle against capitalism.
I think it’s at least an interesting thesis.
If it’s true, then there really ought to be no conflict between racial politics and class politics at all. Racial politics, on this view, simply are a politics of class. This holds so long as people conduct racial politics in the right sort of way, above all geared around coalition-building and broad anti-oppression principles.
But I do find the thesis surprising. It’s not obviously true. Haider needs to defend it.
Haider’s Argument
As I read the book, I think Haider has an argument. He argues that racial issues are the main stumbling block holding back working class unity. In particular, the ‘psychological wage’ provided to whites, and described so well by W. E. B. Du Bois, is the main barrier. If we can overcome white supremacism, there will be no further major obstacles to working class unity and effective class war. Only minor obstacles remain.
The argument is creative. And if true, the argument would establish Haider’s strong conclusion (i.e., that racial politics are thereby class politics).
I think the trouble is that Haider overplays his hand.
To prove his thesis, Haider needs to show that practicing racial politics is sufficient for practicing class politics. He needs to show that the fight against white supremacism, when practiced well, ipso facto brings us closer to working class unity. He needs to show that a final overcoming of white supremacism would bring us all the way, or most of the way, there.
I don’t think this claim works.
Capitalism’s Flexibility
Many things divide working class people. Race is one. Industry is another. There are divisions amongst groups of industrial laborers. There are systematic divisions between industrial laborers and service sector workers. Work status is yet a third division. Full-time workers are divided from part-time and temp workers (and perhaps from those who Guy Standing has called ‘the precariat‘). So-called ‘skilled’ laborers are divided from so-called ‘unskilled’ laborers. There are divisions between employed and unemployed workers. Immigration status is a fourth, and there’s a state of tension between the interests of immigrants and Americans born in the United States.
It’s not clear to me that these divisions form any kind of stable hierarchy. It’s also not clear that progress in any one of them is sufficient to attain overall progress. Successful racial politics might be countered by, e.g., heightened tensions over industry, work status, or immigration status. In the end, we’d be no better off overall.
This is all without making the obvious point that race isn’t even the only major identity-based division. There’s also gender, sexual orientation, et al. divisions. It’s likely that there are further divisions I haven’t considered here. Any of these divisions could function analogously to industry, et al.
It’s also all without making the point that it seems at least possible to fight white supremacism in ways that aren’t connected to class politics. Haider would probably deny this in light of his distinction between good and bad identity politics. And so I won’t press that particular point too far. I suspect Haider’s would quickly slide into a “No True Scotsman” fallacy (i.e., he’d say that any example I would give of non-class based racial politics wouldn’t be real racial politics, or racial politics of the right sort).
Mistaken Identity: Results
What Haider does establish in Mistaken Identity is that racial politics are necessary for working class unity and good class politics. We must overcome racial divisions, but we must also overcome many other divisions. Race is one of them, but it doesn’t hold the special place in the system that Haider assigns it. And it’s certainly not the only (or even most important) division.
Racial politics are a necessary component of class politics, but fall short of being sufficient. That is to say it’s possible to practice racial politics, even apparently good racial politics, without thereby getting at class issues. For that, we need a more comprehensive politics. Thus, Haider hasn’t shown his main thesis, but he’s given us something useful. He also lays out useful thoughts about how to practice these politics well.
