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Reposting a comment i posted on TIJ's video

"I think identity politics is something thats context sensitive. I think its something that should really be limited to societal issues, like discrimination or income distribution for example. But their are certain situations where its not applicable, like the sciences or medicine.

That being said, if a persons job is to create policy that will effect the entire country, then they should definitely take identity politics into consideration. But if its a situation like, performing surgery, or launching a rocket into space, then at that point the group that person chooses to identify with is really relevant."

I think it's kind of dumb how often people rail against identity politics. Especially when they say things like "idpol is just a distraction from the real issues." The fact is, what you consider "real issues" depends entirely on the lens you view the world with and that lens is heavily dependent on your identity. A transwoman living in New York City and a coal miner from West Virginia are going to likely have very different political concerns. And they can both be valid issues that they should care about. The coal miner may be most concerned with their job security and vote for a candidate that promises to bring back coal mining jobs or place regulations against automation. Whereas the transwoman in New York may be more concerned with workplace discrimination and vote for a candidate that will protect her employment rights.

And it doesn't just have to do with the way you view the world but the way the world views you as well. Trans people are treated horribly by large segments of the population. Many people view them as deviants and freaks and go out of their way to disrespect them or worse. Meanwhile people from the Appalachians, and particularly those in blue collar jobs, are frequently stereotyped as less intelligent, more likely to be addicted to meth, racist, "hicks", and incest jokes are common whenever they're brought up.

So I think it's perfectly valid to have political or social opinions based around your identity. I'm glad that people are willing to fight for causes that effect them and their peers. And I would argue that even the people who rail against identity politics do it too whether they realize it or not.

The answer is yes and no. Yes, identity politics can be important, when the issue that needs to be addressed requires it to be handled in a proper context for ones identity to play a big part in it. No, it doesn't need to be the be all, end all, of every single political viewpoint, which is what a lot of people try to force it into being.

In the context of asking whether stuff like the minimum wage should be changed, if there needs to be new anti-discrimination laws, and stuff like restricting or targeting specific groups of people for actions, then yes identity politics are important to consider.

When it comes to everything else, identity politics doesn't really apply. Identity politics as most people use it, concerns decisions of race, sex, or gender. Religion and Culture tend to get lumped in here as well, but hey got their own things such as Naturalization or Church and State laws to deal with.

Point is, most identity politics tend to exclude groups of people from actually being addressed in the talk of identity in politics. The people designated as the "majority" are often the ones excluded because there's a sense that they already have a say in things, whether that is or isn't the case. It's more like Minority Politics then Identity Politics, but that name really doesn't sell well to people.

So when you talk about stuff that directly affects minorities, then its absolutely important to have identity politics come into play. Otherwise its all just context-less bureaucratizing, which results in terrible laws being passed.

But people like to shove identity politics into everything. Comic books, movies, games, music, fashion, individual criminal or civil cases, curriculum, vocabulary, street signs, restaurants, holidays, anywhere and everywhere they can, people like to bring up how because they belong to a certain group, they should have a bigger say in what other people do when it comes to how people do things.

These people are the ones ruining identity politics from being a force for good. Because rather then keep the discussion focused on important issues like unequal poverty or looking into why black people feel like they need to turn to crime in order to earn a living in a higher percetile then white people. They want to ask things like why this actor was chosen in this role in a movie that nobodies going to remember 5 years from now. Or how someone mispronuncing a dishes name constitutes racial bias. Or how everyone, everywhere, no matter what they say, or do, or believe, is actually a secret racist, sexist, phobic, monster unless they're part of your own group.

That's not identity politics, and that's not where identity politics belong. These people wouldn't know an identity if it smacked them in the face because their entire sense of self worth and actualization is done via a groupthink and an angry hashtag.

I don't think identity politics is inherently bad, but it often times lacks nuance. "Privilege" is very much a subject related to identity politics. Determining someone's privilege is widely subjective. There are so many variables that it would be impossible to quantify how much or how little privilege someone has (yeah, I'm talking to you, BuzzFeed). Identity politics is often used to generalize groups based on a few select traits/circumstances. In the USA, blacks make significantly less dollars/year than whites. This is a problem and needs to be addressed. What we end up seeing is people making bogus statements based on generalizations. There was a video of a very wealthy black man saying that the poorest white man had more privilege than he does, just because he's white. Come… on…

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Also, I very much agree with the Sam Harris bit you posted. Identity politics leads to many people just using personal anecdotes as evidence. If you believe that African Americans are commonly treated unfairly by the US justice system, you need to show hard evidence proving that. FBI data shows that African Americans commit crimes at a higher rate than most other groups. If you want me to believe that the FBI data is wrong, don't give me anecdotal evidence. That which is posed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

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A person pointing out an injustice they suffer because they are apart of a certain group isn't wrong. The civil rights movement was just that, and I doubt anyone aside from /pol/tards and Stormers think that the CRM was a bad thing. People will always suffer prejudice. The only remedy is to make your voices heard. Just try to avoid fallacious reasoning while you're at it.

Identity politics was a things during the civil rights time but now because we should fight against discrimination at every level even the smaller one it's seems to focus more and more on irrelevant stuff.

For example "mansplaining" supposing to mean something like "when a man explain a thing to a woman just because she's a women or he's being rude mostly in a working environment". The case of a boss boss/coworker being an asshole to a woman employee just because she's a women exist but sometimes the boss is an asshole because he just a jerk or you actually needed to be scolded because you fucked up.
Furthermore this also happen to men who consider that's part of what you have to deal in your everyday life.
The consequence with mansplainning is you can basically play the sexist card when you are a women while men can not.

And that the problem with today's identity politics it focus on stuff that are experienced by everyone everyday but seen as a problem when you are not part of someone having privilege.

Privilege strangly is all about sex/race while ignoring in 99% the time social status and wealth. But maybe its because people shouting privilege are upper middle class/rich (mostly white) college student

The second problem is while 90/00's fight against discrimination was to take in consideration the action of someone to judge instead of race/gender/etc, since the 10's it have been all about praising race/sex/gender as wonderfull thing.

The third problem is the gender identity stuff.
All of a sudden man and women doesn't mean male/female human anymore and trans aren't just people with disphorya but everyone who "identify as X" (I will be honest with you, from my French perspective this is the most pointless retarded narssissic shit I have ever seen). Also there is now a all new set of gender out of nowhere with special pronouns.
No discussion, you have to agree or you are a transphobic bigot, people laughed at first but it stopped being funny when the state of New York passed a law fining misgendering.

Whitewashing was a problem mostly in the 50's-60's when black couldn't play but now is became more and more hypocritical with just white american complaining on the behalf of minorities (see the Ghost in the Shell adaptation and the Death Note adaptation where there is only complain about the white actor)

Of course Tumblr made it even worst.

Funny thing:
People might be engaging in identity politics without even knowing it. :P

@Tchefuncte Bonaparte

"So I think it’s perfectly valid to have political or social opinions based around your identity. "

I'm really not sure where this statement came from.

If you replaced "opinions" with "causes they rally with", it would make absolute sense. But as is, as far as I'm concerned, what came before it is a description of why people shouldn't base their opinions around their identity.

What has to be realized is that, in a general sense, discrimination occurs via the identification and shunning of an "out-group". Additionally, and crucially, the very concept of any out-group cannot exist in a vacuum- it, by definition, will have alongside it a corresponding "in-group". In other words, the existence of a well-defined set A implies the existence of set A' (the compliment of A), with the universe in this case being all people.

Now where does "identity politics" fit into this? First of all, here's a definition of the term that I think works well here:
"Identity politics" is any sort of "politics" which, as its primary nature,
both grows from and helps solidify at least one in-group/out-group dynamic without an element of reluctance.
I think both of those caveats (in italics) are of great importance to identify certain things that may, on the surface, may appear to be examples of identity politics, but that (at least in my mind) don't really fit. I'll give one example for each to demonstrate that.

First, let's say there was a push for committees related to issues of science in the US House of Representatives to be filled by those Representatives that have the most legitimate academic training and experience in those sciences. Is this identity politics? You could make the argument that it is implicitly implying and justifying an in-group/out-group dynamic- that being "scientists" vs. "non-scientists", or "the scientifically literate" vs. "the non-scientifically literate"- especially if those individuals that are making the push are mainly scientists themselves. However, my judgement would be no, this is not its primary nature. Instead, that would be essentially the further installment of meritocracy in the HoR when it comes to committee selection.

Secondly, let's go with one a bit more obvious- was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, on a whole, identity politics? You can't get around the fact that the people in it were working with an in-group/out-group dynamic- black people vs white/non-black people- and moreover that this was inherent in the movement's primary nature. However, in the majority of cases they were only doing so because that is the dynamic that was dropped into their laps from the start, rather than because they supported it. In fact, they did the opposite of support it- they wanted to break it down. Hence "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners…" yadda yadda yadda.

From all of this, here's what I conclude: While identity politics can, in a very small amount, act as a temporary "band-aid" for certain consequences of discrimination, it (or at least the thought-patterns underlying it) is intrinsically the cause of discrimination in almost all its forms. Hence why it ought to be avoided.

To crystallize this point, I'll end with an analogy:
You wake up lying on the ground in a small arena. You're dressed in some kind of armor suit, and the only thing you have in your possession is a handgun and several rounds.
Right as you're gathering your bearings, a voice appears over the surrounding speakers, which you quickly realize is that of the madman that drugged and kidnapped you. He says that he's brought you here because he wants to play a "game" with you: whoever "wins" is whoever kills the other first. And then, from the other side, you see his figure, and you hear the sickening "bam!" of a bullet being fired.
What is your goal? Is it to "win" on the terms that he set out? That might solve your problems… but it might also put your own life more at risk.
So no. Even if you have no choice but to use that gun at some point, your ultimate goal is to not play the game.