Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media, both online and off. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests. But the trouble, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture—deployed by political, social, and economic elites in the service of their own interests. Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond a binary of “class” vs. “race.” By rejecting elitist identity politics in favor of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organizing across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.

How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

Elite Capture

Marion

Two strategic trends in the response quickly became clear: the elites' tactic of performing symbolic identity politics to pacity protestors without enacting material reforms; and their efforts to rebrand (not replace) existing institutions, also using elements of identity politics.

Deference as a default political orientation can work counter to marginalized groups' interests. We are surrounded by a discourse that locates attentional injustice in the selection of spokespeople and book lists taken to represent the margin-alized, rather than focusing on the actions of the corporations and algorithms that much more powerfully distribute atten-tion. This discourse ultimately participates in the weaponiza-tion of attention in the service of marginalization. It directs what little attentional power we can control at symbolic sites of power rather than at the root political issues that explain why everything is so fucked up.

The same tactics of deference that insulate us from criticism and disagreement insulate us trom connection and transtormation. They prevent us trom engaging empathet-ically and authentically with the struggles of other people-a prerequisite of coalitional politics.

Moreover, as identities become more and more hne grained and disagreements sharper, we come to realize that

"coalitional politics" (understood as struggle across difference) is, simply, politics. Thus, the deferential orientation, like that fragmentation of political collectivity it enables, is ultimately anti-political.

To opt for deference, rather than interdependence, may soothe short-term psychological wounds. But it does so at a steep cost: it may undermine the goals that motivated the project-and it entrenches a politics that does not serve those fighting for freedom over privilege, for collective liberation over mere parochial advantage.

Elite Capture quotes

Join the club