All US Politics Are Identity Politics

One of the terms I see with regularity in the liberal progressive blogosphere is someone writing a comment decrying 'identity politics'. 

After slamming the term, they will then make the case that if identity politics didn't exist, our country would be a better place or whatever point they are trying to make at that time..

News flash, people.  All politics in the United States are identity politics, and that reality of American life ain't going away any time soon.   When you have one ethnic group which has dominated American life since before the founding of the United States, is grudgingly reluctant to share power and engages in the same identity politics decried to keep their hold on the top rungs of society despite their declining population numbers, you can guarantee that identity politics will be hanging around for a while.

So since we know that identity politics are an integral part of the American political landscape, why aren't we factoring that into the way we conduct our civil rights business in the TBLG community?

The Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific caucuses in Congress exist for a reason.  Those caucuses advocate for their ethnic groups interests as public policy is formulated .


We are still acting in the GLBT community as if the country is already 'post racial' and 'colorblind' when it most certainly isn't, and our organizations are not configured to deal with that reality.    They are also not dealing well with the reality that our rainbow community is multicultural, just like the country is.

It's past time that the organizations that claim to represent this diverse rainbow community represent and reflect that diversity.

You need Latino, African American and Asian Pacific islander GLBT people in your orgs to eloquently speak not only for the entire community, but articulate the concerns and policy needs of their specific communities in order to make overall GLBT policy better and more inclusive.

It should be obvious by now that you are not going to get broad based support for BTLG policies that are formulated of, by and for the benefit of predominately upper middle class white GLBT people.


The point is that you can either continue to misfire on gaining LGBT rights by ignoring reality and continuing business as usual or step into the 21st century, realize that we are a multiethnic country that engages in identity politics and calibrate your policies to not only be cognizant of that fact, but calibrate your politics to account for the identity politics that said polices will have to negotiate to become codified into the law of the land.

The TransGriot's Take On The Newsweek 'Uncivil Rights' Article

Pam's House Blend crossposted this Alvin McEwen piece of the Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters blog with his thoughts about a Newsweek article called Uncivil Rights  comparing the African American and LGBT Civil Rights movements.  

This was the comment I posted on both the Blend and Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters blogs: 

For far too long the peeps in the LGBT movement have forgotten that we exist, and it has been to the detriment of the TBLG  movement as a whole.


The African American community would like to forget that we exist, but news flash for the AA community, we're here and the chocolate SGL and trans community ain't going away.

I didn't give up my membership in the Black community when I transitioned, and I still get called the n-word by white peeps gay and straight.

And I agree we have a common enemy to fight in the same conservative anti civil right Forces of Intolerance the AA civil rights movement battled.  They took the lessons learned in LOSING to us and are applying them in battling the GLBT movement

The sooner we start working together intersectionally, the better.

And as you probably guessed..it got contentious in the Blend comment thread from there. 


There has been this ongoing contentious back and forth sniping between the African-American and LGBT communities.  The tension got ratcheted up another level in the wake of the 2008 Prop 8 loss and still hasn't simmered down much even though it's two years later.  

And the Black SGL/TBLG community is uncomfortably in the middle of the debate.


We aren't seen as 'Black enough' by the African American community as SGL, intersex and trans community denizens.   On the flip side the LGBT one questions our loyalties to it because of our cultural ties to other African Americans.

It's not an either-or proposition for me and many African descended TBILG  people    The bottom line is that we are both Black and part of that rainbow community as well  Peeps on both sides need to deal with that reality. 

One of those realities is that we see the issues in the GLBT community from our chocolate flavored perspective and always will.    It means that you can't get mad when we tell you that we don't think DADT,  DOMA or same gender marriage should be the top legislative priority of this movement when we believe that jobs jobs jobs and ENDA should be


We are tired of vanilla LBGT folks still acting pissy toward President Obama because they backed Hillary Clinton and she lost the Democratic nomination, and still hatin' by having unrealistic performance expectations for the POTUS that you didn't have for the previous Caucasian occupants at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue named Bush and Clinton.    We also get upset when you fail to realize that your best friends in Congress when it comes to GLBT rights legislation have been the members of the Congressional Black Caucus.  

The  Black people are 'uniquely homophobic' meme that percolates in vanilla LGBT circle pisses us chocolate BTLGI peeps off.     It galls us in light of our observation that the folks who are holding the petition drives, voting against GLBT rights legislation, founding orgs like Focus on the Family, calling you everything but Children of God and bankrolloing the efforts to keep you as third class citizens look like you.

But yet we're the 'uniquely homophobic' peeps you lash our at while failing to confront your oppressors in the GOP, fundamentalist churches and the conservative movement. .


At the same time as members of the TBLGI/SGL community and Christians we decry and can't stand the faith based hatred directed at the community that has resulted in many of our transsistahs being killed or injured due to ignorance and violence fueled by that rhetoric.  

We have our hate pastors and assorted idiots, and we're  fighting them tooth and nail as well.   We will (and do) call them out.

But damn, we can't fight them and be sparring with y'all at the same time.  

But like I said in the comment on both blogs, the gay and African-American communities have no option but to do a better job of working intersectionally.