2016: When Identity Politics Refused to Sit in the Back of the Bus
"Identity".
It is an alarming pattern to see current 'progressives' using that term in a dismissive and even pejorative way. When did 'identity" issues become relegated to being the ugly stepchild of the Democratic platform? That dismissal stands in stark contrast to years of progressive activism that recognized that minorities of all kinds are subject to insidious and pervasive injustices, independent of and in addition to their economic challenges.
It is even more unsettling because it sounds exactly like the defenses used by the Republicans to deny the real, deeply entrenched prejudices facing all POC and minorities. They call them, "wedge issues" because to them, they are not real or as important. Republicans have traditionally been the ones to use economic issues as the only metric. They approach social issues as if all things are otherwise equal when they are most decidedly not. They insist that all the problems facing minorities are solved and subsumed by economic reform. Sound familiar?
Now we are hearing that identical position repeated by 'progressives' on the left. In some cases, that view is now even being used as a reason to deny the possibility of the first woman President because reaching that milestone is somehow no longer 'progressive'. The undercurrent of disenfranchisement in the present election is strikingly apparent to many minorities who are pushing back virtually unanimously. They are using their votes to challenge what they rightly perceive as reinforcement of the status quo. They will not sit in the back of the bus.
Economic reform simply does not address all the cultural and systemic discrimination faced by minorities. Justice reform, education and health reform are critical improvements but they do not go far enough. That is the point POC and all minorities keep trying to make and the one that seems to be falling on deaf ears. Senator Sanders is not an unhinged racist nor are the vast majority of his supporters . If Senator Sanders were to win the nomination and Presidency, it is vitally important that he truly and deeply understand what all minorities face and are trying to tell him. President Obama instinctively gets it and that is why minorities instinctively trust him on these issues.
What is happening is that the chronic daily grind of micro, macro and systemic aggressions to which POC and minorities are subject is lost on some people. And those people are not limited to Senator Sanders nor his supporters. Unseen privilege is endemic in our culture by those, by accident of birth and no effort of their own, happen to be beneficiaries of more rights than others.
It matters not that an economy is robust if minorities are routinely 'redlined' out of opportunity in nearly every sphere: education, employment in every field, housing, medical services, media and historical representation, cultural and social acceptance, inclusion in nearly every facet of the public arena and significant day to day safety and protection under the law for all its citizens.
These 'identity' issues that are becoming routinely disparaged by some of the left, cut across every single strata of class in minority communities. All POC (and women, LGBT and disabled for that matter) are subject to a culture that views them as 'other' than the default white, straight, able bodied white males. They are disproportionately always subject to judgment and a far more rigorous and punishing metric. They are routinely dismissed, erased, lectured, and have their constant safety concerns (no matter their 'class' standing) accepted as the status quo.
That this disenfranchisement is being promoted by those who are currently disproportionately represented and beneficiaries of an unequal system: straight white males who do not have to contend with all those challenges, comes as a surprise to no one. That it is coming from those who claim they have modern, progressive sensibilities is shows how far we still need to go.
We still have a dream. We will not sit in the back of the bus. Lets keep going!
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It saddens me when I see, hear or read comments from people who I think are progressive, that just send a shiver up my spine. It is so subtle at times you can almost miss it. But it's there. Still a lot of work to do. But things continue to change.
