This week we looked into identity politics and how people of color were identified in the 21st century. In order to understand better, we read two articles “Too Latina to be Black, Too Black to be Latina” by Aleichia Williams and “The Power of Identity Politics” by Garza Alicia which basically tells/explains to us how people and women of color were made to live and identify as. The article “Too Latina to be Black, Too Black to be Latina” talks about the life experience of a Black Latina woman who moved to North Carolina at the age of thirteen and was unaware about the culture of the people. The article talked about how kids from different races were not seen together and they were divided into three groups either you’re “Black, Mexican, or White”. She also talked about how she was treated after sitting in class with a “group of friendly-looking Hispanic girls” and one of the girls said to another in Spanish “why is she sitting here? Unknown to the girl that she also speaks Spanish and I believe this happened because of her skin color. According to the article, people constantly tell her that she doesn’t fit anywhere and “try to restrict her to a specific mold and identity” and people believed that since my “home language is Spanish that must mean I eat tacos and having kinky hair also means I bang to meek mill.” People kept saying she was “Too Black to be Latin and Too Latin to be Black” due to the skin color. I can also relate this to my classmate Heatherlee’s snapshot which shows an image of a girl who also went through the same thing. On one side we see her with curly hair and on the other side, we see her with a straight slick her and yet she is never good in people’s eyes. No matter what she does, she still gets asked questions like, “where are you from, do you speak African, is that your natural hair, when I see you, I don’t see black, why not have your natural hair out, you don’t love yourself, you might as well wear weave, etc. she is never enough just because of the color of her skin.
From the article “The Power of Identity Politics”, the term “Identity” is simply a “means of describing what it entails to live outside what has been defined as the norm in the United States” and the term “Identity Politics” was used to “describe the life experiences of those facing systemic oppression, those who are not white, heterosexual, cisgender men”, etc. during times of the Civil Rights movement, women movement, lesbian and gas movements, etc. Identity politics was first developed by Black feminists who refused to be defined politically by a set of standards that wasn’t theirs. The term first appeared in the Combahee River collective statement in 1977 by a group of black feminists who got involved in the movement to fight for their freedom. Identity Politics is ultimately a strong political concept which aims to identify and understand “gender-based and racial systemic oppression” with the goal to ensure everyone is treated equally irrespective of gender and political identity. In addition, power is both simple and hard to define, because it prefers to “operate in obscurity and those who have power rarely want to acknowledge they have unearned benefits at the expense of those seeking equal treatment” but however, Identity politics tries to make that power seen and understood which is primary to how power operates. The Blonde’s indifferent attitude to the reality of politically marginalized people shows how power operates. Like the Blonde, some American Conservatives feel it is not right to Identify ourselves in ways that divide us, rather we should always feel as part of one human family but then, the systemic oppression exists irrespective of their own assertion.
Furthermore, for the Combahee River collection, their life experiences were shaped by what they called “Interlocking Oppressions” from racism, sexism, capitalism, heterosexualism, etc. They committed to being anti-racist unlike their white counterparts, and anti-sexist unlike their white and Black male counterparts. This experience led them to understand the movement was primarily not for the freedom of all women but for the white women. They realized no one could fight for them, therefore they coined the term “Identity Politics” meaning they would form a politic based on their own experience and work for their own freedom. Moreover, black women cannot afford to see the women’s movement only acknowledged through the “lens of white women” because the experiences of Black women are unique and complex and should therefore be treated differently in order to feel as part of one human family. America is built on white Identity Politics because of the false classification of people based on their skin color. If we remain indifferent and support the assertions of the Blonde in this article, we should understand that until we examine the ways the Elephant in America’s room continues to shape our lives, we will always move in circles with no real chance of moving past it. When we intentionally close our eyes and don’t realize the power of identity politics in our society, it will deter us from changing how power operates.
