How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics | Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò | TMR

"Identity politics" has become a polarizing term that is used to narrow group interests and close ranks around specific identities, but this is a far cry from the original concept introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. In his book, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò argues that the problem is not with identity politics itself, but with the process of elite capture that strips the concept of its political substance and liberatory potential. Táíwò draws on the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism to demonstrate how this process occurs. He rejects elitist identity politics in favor of constructive politics of radical solidarity that can organize across differences in the struggle for a better world.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. The author of his second book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). Olúfẹ́mi thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So let's start with I guess The Bare Basics. What is identity? Politics and I guess you know we can start or you know it started at the Kambaku River Collective 50-odd years ago. Or at least the idea was developed. Tell us how it was developed and what it's perceived to have mutated into I guess. So the basic idea as I understand it as the comedy River Collective developed was identity politics is just doing politics starting from an understanding of your place in the social world. right? So you can start from the other direction. You can try to understand the whole social world, the whole social system and do politics from there. But they thought it would be better to understand where you fit into things and then go from there. So whether you know it's gender or race or you know whatever is Salient to you, that's a way that you can start thinking about what your political agendas and priorities are. and as they developed it, that was compatible with starting from there but getting to work with other people and taking their concerns on board and so on and so forth. You know all the things that we think of under the head in Coalition or politics maybe today. and what identity politics has morphed into for some people is something that's kind of anti-coalitional anti-solidaristic. Like I'm going to start thinking about where I fit in the social system and where people like me fit into the social system and I'm going to end there. like that's who I'm fighting for. That's what the fight is about. You know what people like me are going through. so on and so forth. okay so let's talk about the critiques of identity politics that exist today. because they really do come from across the ideological Spectrum. but they are they're different based on where those people are situated on the Spectrum. Walk us through those different critiques and then let's talk about where yours fits in within that Spectrif it does. Yeah, I certainly think it fits in the Spectrum. I'd say on the far right you know you have an opposition to Identity politics that is pretty I pretty nakedly I think just an investment in the way things are going. Right? So people who pursue identity politics might want to change things based on understanding the present system as patriarchal or anti-queer or anti-black or something like that. And all those things are just fine to the people on the far right.