Radical Identity Politics

Download or read book Radical Identity Politics written by Torben Bech Dyrberg and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book outlines significant traits of radical leftist identity politics. In this type of discourse, arguments are organized around global friend/enemy schemes in ways that are at odds with the right/left matrix of democracy. This is shown by combining discourse analysis of how leftist critics argue in public debates centred on their reactions to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015 and theoretical discussions on leftist identity politics orbiting around Schmitt, Marcuse and Mouffe. It is argued that the friend/enemy approach sacrifices the egalitarian and libertarian core values of the Left, leading it to adopt positions used to brand the reactionary Right. It also holds that leftist identity politics undermines democracy by moralizing enmity and stigmatizing dissent, and by promoting an elitist and relativist agenda. Against this background, the book looks at the nature of the right/left distinction and its political functions in modern democracy. This is further elaborated in relation to the works of Foucault and Rawls's analyses of parrhesia (free speech) and public reason, which provide a more fruitful approach to right/left and democracy than those based on enmity. For Foucault and Rawls, a vibrant pluralist democracy relies on the autonomy of politics, which secures a space in which citizens are free and equal, which is crucial for free speech and assembly. They focus on issues related to the autonomy of politics and the freestanding nature of public reason; right/left as lateral political orientation coupled with fairness as political justification and the links between regime form and political community as decisive for democracy.

Download or read book Mistaken Identity written by Asad Haider and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful challenge to the way we understand the politics of race and the history of anti-racist struggle Whether class or race is the more important factor in modern politics is a question right at the heart of recent history’s most contentious debates. Among groups who should readily find common ground, there is little agreement. To escape this deadlock, Asad Haider turns to the rich legacies of the black freedom struggle. Drawing on the words and deeds of black revolutionary theorists, he argues that identity politics is not synonymous with anti-racism, but instead amounts to the neutralization of its movements. It marks a retreat from the crucial passage of identity to solidarity, and from individual recognition to the collective struggle against an oppressive social structure. Weaving together autobiographical reflection, historical analysis, theoretical exegesis, and protest reportage, Mistaken Identity is a passionate call for a new practice of politics beyond colorblind chauvinism and “the ideology of race.”

Download or read book The Plot to Change America written by Mike Gonzalez and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Plot to Change America exposes the myths that help identity politics perpetuate itself. This book reveals what has really happened, explains why it is urgent to change course, and offers a strategy to do so. Though we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will be easy to eliminate identity politics, we should not overthink it, either. Identity politics relies on the creation of groups and then on giving people incentives to adhere to them. If we eliminate group making and the enticements, we can get rid of identity politics. The first myth that this book exposes is that identity politics is a grassroots movement, when from the beginning it has been, and continues to be, an elite project. For too long, we have lived with the fairy tale that America has organically grown into a nation gripped by victimhood and identitarian division; that it is all the result of legitimate demands by minorities for recognition or restitutions for past wrongs. The second myth is that identity politics is a response to the demographic change this country has undergone since immigration laws were radically changed in 1965. Another myth we are told is that to fight these changes is as depraved as it is futile, since by 2040, America will be a minority-majority country, anyway. This book helps to explain that none of these things are necessarily true.

Download or read book Elite Capture written by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.

Download or read book White Identity Politics written by Ashley Jardina and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst discontent over America's growing diversity, many white Americans now view the political world through the lens of a racial identity. Whiteness was once thought to be invisible because of whites' dominant position and ability to claim the mainstream, but today a large portion of whites actively identify with their racial group and support policies and candidates that they view as protecting whites' power and status. In White Identity Politics, Ashley Jardina offers a landmark analysis of emerging patterns of white identity and collective political behavior, drawing on sweeping data. Where past research on whites' racial attitudes emphasized out-group hostility, Jardina brings into focus the significance of in-group identity and favoritism. White Identity Politics shows that disaffected whites are not just found among the working class; they make up a broad proportion of the American public - with profound implications for political behavior and the future of racial conflict in America.

Download or read book Radical Interventions written by Suzanne de Castell and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1997-08-28 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minority scholars offer a critical and often radical rethinking of fundamental questions concerning identity, politics, and difference/s as these inform educational theory and practice.

Download or read book Political Tribes written by Amy Chua and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the failure of America's political elites to recognize how group identities drive politics both at home and abroad, and outlines recommendations for reversing the country's foreign policy failures and overcoming destructive political tribalism at home.