Táíwò

A powerful indictment of the ways elites have co-opted radical critiques of racial capitalism to serve their own ends. "Identity politics" is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom. But the "identity politics" so compulsively referenced 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, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and become 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

aisha

Rules and procedures can help keep these ventures stable and well directed. But Robert's Rules of Order cannot do much to contain toxic organising cultures.

sasha 

Bad roommates aren't the problem, for the same reason that being a good roommate isn't the solution: the problem is that we are still trapped in the room. 

Elite Capture quotes

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