Must Read - Stacy Abrams Destroys False Choice Between Social Justice and Working Class [View all]

[TomCADem]

Why is it that even in the era of Trump where he attacks Democrats for engaging in identity politics by speaking up for women and minorities even as he panders to white resentment do some “progressive” politicians repeat this theme and attack such efforts?

Stacy Abrams has written a brilliant essay explaining why this is a false choice.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/1/18206769/stacey-abrams-state-of-the-union-response-essay-identity-politics

Stacey Abrams, the rising Democratic star and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, is giving the Democratic response to plTrump’s State of the Union on Tuesday. On Friday morning, she published an essay with a spirited defense of one of the most controversial ideas in American public life: identity politics.

The piece, published by the journal Foreign Affairs, is a response to an essay by famed intellectual Francis Fukuyama. In a recent book, Fukuyama lambasted left-wing movements for dividing the country by focusing too much on appeals to race and gender; he called instead for Democrats to refocus on class to win back blue-collar Trump voters.

It’s a familiar argument, and one Abrams finds decidedly unpersuasive. She argues that identity politics is simply the assertion of historically marginalized groups’ interests and right to participate as equals in society, an inevitable and necessary feature of a society marked by social oppression. The piece marks Abrams as the rare politician willing to mount a full-throated defense of the idea of identity politics; the fact that she does so in a sharp and compelling way helps explain why the Democratic party sees her as a rising star.

The core of Abrams’s argument is that identity politics is not something that members of marginalized groups can ignore. If they want equality, they must address the issues and social structures that oppress them.