In defense of “identity politics”, the struggle of the oppressed for justice

News reported that between 2005 & 2014, 17,000 women were murdered in Mexico–much of that likely related to the so-called drug war & military occupation of the country. Between 2003 & 2012, over 18,000 women in the US were murdered by men, over half by intimate partners. Official Indian crime figures estimate over 8,000 women a year are murdered in “dowry deaths & in 2013 there were 106,527 incidents of “cruelty” committed against women by husbands & in-laws. That kind of statistic holds true around the world.

The homicide rate against the Black community in the US is finally breaking the silence barrier of media & we now know that every 28-hours a Black person is killed by a police officer. According to “Operation Ghetto Storm” by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, that’s over 300 Black people a year.

So why in the hell are leftists going after “identity politics”? Identity politics is the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Black Power movement of the 1970s, the women’s liberation & LGBT movements–all of which transformed politics in the US, all of which were resistance to oppression & the exercise of power. Is it perhaps the specter of Black power, female power, LGBT power that scares the hell out of people? Is it something they cannot control? What possible objections hold water when the oppressed stand up for their own best interests? None!

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