“I don’t see colour” or The Complicated Dishonest Politics of Identity
I didn’t blog last week because this post took me a lot longer to write than I thought. So please accept this post as last weeks and this weeks reflection. It’s quite long so grab a coffee or tea, and settle in for a bit of a read.
I was on my way home from a conference I was speaking at some years ago. It was a Melbourne December so for my northern hemisphere friends, that means one of the hottest months of the year.
In the warmer months, I tend to keep my hair quite short. This time, my hair was clippered to the point of almost being bald. I had a serious case of the five o’clock shadows and in addition, I tend to tan quite significantly during the summer months, a benefit of my Maltese genes.
So there I was, stopped at a set of traffic lights at a busy intersection in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. It was hot, the window was open, my elbow sticking out the side of the car probably listening to a 24 hour news station, nerd I know.
It took a few seconds for me to hear the yelling over the sound of the radio. I looked out the window and I could see the source of the yelling. It was two, twenty something white Caucasian males. The seemed to be yelling and it appeared to be aggressive. I turned the sound down and listened.
“Go back to where you came from you f***ing Arab!” they yelled. I looked in the opposite direction trying to find the target of their vitriol. I was the only car in this part of the intersection waiting for the lights to change. I looked back at them and once again in the opposite direction, thinking now that their target was someone walking on the other side of the road. I scanned the footpath and it too was empty as far as the eye could see. As I looked back at the young men still screaming, it suddenly dawned on me, they were yelling at me.
It was half way through December 2005, a time when Australia was experiencing a thing we now call the Cronulla Race Riots.
Putting on my best Aussie bogan accent, I yelled out “I am mate, back to Diamo! Cheers!” “Diamo” being the truncated version of Diamond Creek, a very white settler suburb close to where I live which ironically has experienced a shift in demographics since that time.
I didn’t really think about the incident until after the conference. I had some time to reflect and as I did so, in particular in the light of national events surrounding the riots, I realised the effect that this and many other incidents prior to and since that one continue to have on my sense of identity.
You may have missed something significant last week. A question was asked on the ABC’s Q&A program (you can see the question here, skip to the 32 minute and 15 second mark). The white, middle class Australian man who must be at least in his 60′s asks, “After working and paying taxes for about 50 years myself, I believe that no person living in Australia today should be entitled to any special benefit or recognition, which is based not simply on need or achievement, but on race or how long their ancestors were here. What do the panel think of that?”
The host threw to Sami Shar. Lucky bloke. I thought he responded well given no notice and the incendiary nature of the question. “It is easy to dismiss the value of race when it is not something that has been a defining aspect of your life, when it’s not something that has been used to vilify, deprive and destroy community ... when you’ve never had that kind of vilification ... it’s easy to say it’s a fair go, everybody is born equal, and “I don’t see race”.
In the US, yet another Trump inspired political firestorm is unfolding, this time as a result of a tweet telling four congresswomen of colour they should go back to where they came from.
I am not sure if you have heard of the term “identity politics”. The phrase, these days is often used in a pejorative sense however that was not originally the case. Back in the 1970′s was articulated as a framework that helped “those feeling oppressed by and actively suffering under systemic social inequities to articulate their suffering and felt oppression in terms of their own experience by processes of consciousness-raising and collective action.” The intent of identity politics was a mechanism that was "seen as ways to gain empowerment or avenues through which to work towards a more equal society.”
If you could for a minute, put aside your thoughts and feelings regarding the phrase for a minute.
Think with me for a minute.
If there were a mechanism that could help us see the systemic ways in which we could clearly see that for example black women experienced a significant and disproportionate level of violence over and against that experienced by other demographics, surely we can agree that this mechanism is a good thing? If this lens helped us to see dynamics at play that we were unable to see prior to the introduction of such lenses, again surely that would be a good thing? If this lens enabled us to begin imagining solutions that empowered this demographic, and helped us collectively move towards a more equal society, again surely we would consider this to be a good thing?
Now remember, prior to the previous paragraph, I said that in order to see the goodness of such a mechanism we would need to park our bias concerning the mechanism and the name of this mechanism, namely identity politics. So if you can’t quite see the goodness that I am referring to in the above paragraph, perhaps skip back up the article and try again?
Regardless of how you are feeling at this stage of the post, this was exactly the intent of the origins of identity politics. Namely:
A framework that helped us see something that we could not see before and,
Once seen, solutions could be conceived of that would move us towards a more equal society.
Arguably, identity politics as a mechanism is responsible for some of the most significant social transformations during the last four decades including but not limited to the ongoing struggle for women’s rights (in all spheres), the civil rights of minority groups and the civil rights of those who do not conform to gender or sexual “social norms”.
Fast forward four decades and we have all sorts of people using the phrase identity politics negatively, almost as a profanity. The arguments against identity politics are many including but not limited to:
It is a concept that emerges from Marxism, Socialism (insert whatever “ism” will gain the most negative of reactions in the audience that the critic seeks to persuade),
It is destructive,
It is negative,
It divides people rather than bringing people together.
The use of the phrase “identity politics” and the associated negative attributions are one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate around who holds power and more importantly alternative visions to the status quo that may emerge after honest reflection.
And it is the lack of honesty in these criticisms that angers me most.
Those who seek to criticise identity politics as a divisive tool are employing the very same mechanism they seek to discredit in their attempts to discredit it! In their attempts to discredit identity politics, critics use a specific form of identity politics referred to as “white grievance” or “white identity” politics, a form of identity politics!
Professor Ashely Jardina, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duke University noted that Trump’s “go back” tweet was a strategic and well thought through strategy designed to speak directly to the anxieties of two groups of people:
"The first subset are white voters who are racially resentful, who have hostility to voters of colour, they don't believe they play by the rules," she says. "Telling women of colour in Congress to go back to the countries they come from is going to resonate with racially prejudiced voters."
It will also play well, she says, with a different subset: voters who are worried about the changing demographics of America but don't harbour the same hostility towards racial minorities."For these voters, the idea elected officials don't uniformly look like them is symbolic of the loss of political power that white Americans have enjoyed for a long time."
So critics of identity politics,
using the very same framework,
on the basis of an identity “white anxiety” or “white grievance”,
on the basis of the fears of real or perceived loss of power,
and therefore as a consequence of using identity politics to clearly articulate the fears experienced by this demographic,
attempt to shut down debate arising as a result of identity politics.
Dishonest. Brilliant. But yeah, dishonest.
It seems to me that when one group becomes aware to their lack of power, and when that group seeks to find it’s power, and when a society needs to adjust and specifically when those who are accustomed to having a monopoly upon power find themselves in a position of needing to share their power with others, well quite frankly it gets ugly.
Case in point the national debate surrounding Australia’s treatment of Adam Goodes as a result of the release of the documentary The Final Quarter.
So where to from here? I have four thoughts (and an optional fifth):
1) The dishonesty needs to be exposed When those who attack the use of identity politics use the exact same tactic, well firstly, to be totally honest, I congratulate them. Well played. However the fact that they are using the same strategy to reinforce the status quo, that dishonesty needs to be exposed.
2) Be compassionate when dealing with people who are afraid (including yourself) There is something exhilarating about discovering and beginning to use ones power. Conversely there is something quite terrifying to discover that you are about to lose power, especially if the power you are about to lose was something that you didn’t realise you had and the imminent loss comes as a surprise. I have written about this before. The full post appears here. This quote which I used from that post speaks to this phenomenon well:
“To the privileged, equality can feel like a loss. Over time I have come to the idea that independence requires equality and, therefore, a sense of loss for many.” - Jesse Alan Downs
3) Holding power as opposed to holding power to account I am a geek, I have noted that several times. So to make this point, I reach to sci fi, in particular The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. In describing the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, the writer reflects they are simply "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes".
Revolutions are dangerous things. How many times do we need to go through he cycle of replacing one set of ruthless dictators with another? How do we move towards a more equal society if the process requires creating a new minority without power?
This is the trickiest of issues. Why? Because in order for minorities to take their place in a society and be involved in wielding power, those with a monopoly on power need to have the wisdom and courage to recognise this and relinquish their monopoly. That takes a profound kind of leadership. Which brings me to my final thought.
4) Encouraging and getting behind honest, compassionate and wounded leaders of the status quo I jumped into my car and therefore came part way into an interview. I thought I recognised the voice of the person being interviewed but couldn’t quite place it. I listened to this political leader discussing identity politics. They noted the when identity politics are used in ways to identify those who suffer and help us imagine alternative futures, identity politics is a good thing. However when identity politics are used to divide groups of people and deny us the ability to imagine creative solutions, it was a bad thing.
I listened to this interview for about twenty minutes and only at the end, discovering that the person being interviewed was Barnaby Joyce. That’s right, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who lost his seat because he was a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, only to win the seat back and then lose his position as Deputy Prime Minister because his affair with his former staffer and expected child became public news. (And so on and so on and so on).
It struck me as I listened to Joyce describe the ways in which identity politics helps us see groups who suffer that we are unable to any other way, and then to creatively imagine solutions, I was listening to a man who had experienced not just one, but several national humiliations. (I couldn’t find that interview, if someone can, by all means let me know and I will post a link to this article. However, I was able to find this article that you might find interesting.)
Another powerful white male who has given me pause to reflect upon the judgementalism I carry in my own heart is Eddie McGuire. There were many moments in the Adam Goodes doco that moved me. One of them however came from an unexpected place. There is a very short scene, where McGuire, after making several racial gaffes has had a moment to reflect publicly on the effect of his casual racism on Adam Goodes. Suddenly Eddie struggles to find words and chokes up with tears that he tries to hold back. He stands emotionally in the place of “the other”. He realises that he has hurt another human being in a way that will most likely leave a mark for the rest of his life. Yes Goodes may heal, however whenever Eddie interacts with Goodes, he will be mindful of the scar on Goodes’ soul, a scar that he inflicted. So as I have reflected on this doco, the world we find ourselves in, and as I have despaired at the apparent lack of a way forward in this tribalised world, I wonder if part of the way forward is to look harder for and then encouraging the honest, compassionate, wounded leaders of the status quo, or at the very least, looking for opportunities for their formation?
5) Optional fifth thought I have a fifth thought, exclusively for my sisters and brothers of the Christian faith. I have spoken at length with many a sister and brother in Christ about this stuff. One of the most demoralising things is the idea that issues of race are not “core gospel concerns”. In many of those discussions, Paul’s statement from Galatians is cited: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” as thought this somehow confirms the fact that this collection of my thoughts in this post is at best peripheral and at worst irrelevant to the practice of the Christian faith. However, after reflecting on Paul’s words and more importantly the context, I realise that they cannot be used to dismiss the issue. Paul in Galatians is taking on the fact that everyone seems to have succumbed to the negative dimensions of identity politics, in the way that Barnaby Joyce warned about in his interview. When you work your way through Galatians, everything up until this statement, it is clear, Paul is not commanding people to cease and desist. He is not telling people to cease playing the worst kind of identity politics game. He is in fact offering us a vision of what could be, a vision of a community where many tribes, tongues and cultures come together, as equals under the lordship of the only person we can trust to hold power, therefore relieving us of all of our fears.
