Many privileged by gender, ethnicity, class express high-flown contempt for “identity politics.” Their antipathies for equality are exposed if you enter one of their political discussions with a female name or without prestigious academic credentials. If identity is no matter, why are women’s comments awkwardly & constantly ignored as if they farted in public? Why are those without educational pedigrees ignored as having nothing worthwhile to say?

If there is anything in politics whose vapidity is outdone by its mean-spirited elitism, it is the relentless criticisms of identity politics as inferior politics. As long as we are persecuted for our identities, we consider fighting for the dignity of those identities as fundamental to our worldview.

There is no such thing as a human being without identity–some privileged, some not, & many violently persecuted. If you can stop the violence against those persecuted for their identities, then we can start talking harmony. It’s not our struggles that divide but the racism, misogyny, nationalism imposed on us. Try to get that straight.