identity politics

identity politics, political or social activity by or on behalf of a racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other group, usually undertaken with the goal of rectifying injustices suffered by group members because of differences or conflicts between their particular identity (or misconceptions of their particular identity) and the dominant identity (or identities) of a larger society. Identity politics also aims, in the course of such activity, to eliminate negative misrepresentations (stereotypes) of particular groups that have served to justify their members’ exclusion, exploitation, marginalization, oppression, or assimilation to the point of erasure. In a broad sense of the term, identity politics also encompasses nationalist or separatist movements within particular countries and territories. In the United States, groups associated with identity politics have included African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Muslims, Jews, feminists, and the LGBTQ community, among others. Identity politics is closely related to multiculturalism, or the general view that cultural minority groups deserve respectful acknowledgment of their distinctive belief systems, values, and ways of life.

Identity politics in the United States developed in the 1980s and ’90s as a reaction to the perceived failure of liberal civil rights legislation to eliminate identity-based inequities and injustices, such as racial and sexual discrimination. In the view of many leftist critics, liberal ideals of equality, such as equal rights, equality before the law, and equality of opportunity, were misguided and ultimately counterproductive, because their transcendent nature (their application to all persons, irrespective of identity) made it difficult in practice to justify policies designed to achieve greater social equity through direct assistance to historically oppressed and exploited groups, particularly African Americans. Indeed, during this period conservative activists and government officials frequently invoked the liberal value of “colour blindness” to resist racial affirmative action programs in education, employment, government contracting, and other areas. A related criticism was that liberalism’s emphasis on identity-independent equality rendered it capable of recognizing only the most overt and obvious identity-based injustices, not those that were relatively indirect, subtle, or systemic (see critical race theory). Defenders of liberalism and other critics argued in response that the continued pursuit of identity politics had led to a fracturing of oppressed and exploited populations into numerous inward-looking interest groups whose differing priorities obscured their common goals and challenges and prevented the kind of mass mobilization necessary to secure their basic rights.