Prometheus 6

In 2003, when the Republican Party fist discovered MEChA and I was still fairly new to blogging, I ran across a conversation between Atrios and TAPPED, The American Prospect's blog. I've pointed out my reactions to that discussion before. Here I just want to point you at the original entry on TAPPED, as frozen in amber at archive.org.

Atrios' response included the following

It's irrelevant whether I "like" or "don't like" identity politics. It has always been with us and it always will. People group together based on similar characteristics and political desires, and in states like Texas and California where Fear of the Brown Horde is a steady theme of right wing politicians, it's odd to criticize the Brown Horde itself for uniting and standing up for itself. "Identity politics" is largely meaningless phrase which is only ever applied to minority interests, even when it is being practiced to a greater effect and degree by the majority or otherwise politically powerful. For this reason, one rarely hears of Cuban-American "identity politics" in Miami, because they're they dominant political group. Therefore, they get to graduate from "identity politics" to "interest group," or simply "in charge." No one refers to the Christian Coaliation as practitioners of "identity politics" either, even though they choose to practice it while externally identifiable minorities are almost forced to engage in it.

My beef with Tapped over this issue more generally is a tendency to make snide comments about "identity politics" every time a Real Live Minority stands up for other Real Live Minorities. Now, Tapped and The American Prospect in general are of course on the right side of the civil rights issue policy-wise, but the tendency to try and marginalize minority discourse is occasionally upsetting. The lack of minority voices on both minority and other issues in the media should be of some concern for the liberal media. Of course, minorities in journalism know that if they speak too much about minority issues they'll be quickly marginalized by those who dominate the discourse. Unless, of course, they're Bold and Brave and Contrarian enough to stand up to all the evil racial demagoguery emanating from those horrible civil rights leaders.

Sure, demagoguery exists on all sides and inappropriate racial demagoguery is particularly poisonous in a country with our history. But when it comes from people with little or no political power and few chances to participate in the national political discourse, it's an entirely different issue. Some things happening under the banner of "identity politics" I won't like, as with everything, but to marginalize united minority voices trying to scream above the crowd while ignoring what is forcing that issue - the identity politics of white men - is a sad trend in both in the so -called and actual liberal media.

Salon is the only media outlet I've seen which has dared to address the racial politics of the Texas redistrcting shenanigans head on, while MEChA is now a household word. There's something wrong here.

You might think they would think about that.

In 2006, we find they only thought about how to sell their position more effectively.

Party in Search of a Notion
The opportunity before the Democrats is far bigger than a few House and Senate seats if they can recognize -- and seize -- this unique historical moment.
Michael Tomasky | April 16, 2006

The central point of of the presentation was that search for the elusive centrist, the swing voter. The technique: pursue only universal values.

Much of the work done by these groups, and many of their goals, are laudable. But if they can’t justify that work and those goals in more universalist terms rather than particularist ones, then they just shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I haven't referenced my responses to that before now. Here they are.

The behinder I get

Let's see now, what was I saying?

You can read those later if you like. For now, suffice it to say when people who decry identity politics start talking about universal values it usually starts feeling like 1955.

Sen. Obama's campaign decries identity politics and talks about universal values.

To be fair, it's shared values he speaks of. I'm concerned because I suspect he has a conservative conjunction in mind...the intersection of values rather than the union of values. That's the feel I get from speeches past. Maybe that was necessary; he really does need white folks' acceptance. Maybe he can talk to Black folks now that white folks know he won't abandon them.

Talking to us about things other than hip-hop would be good. Having told us what white folks wanted said to us, we will see if he can tell us what we want to hear.