This week’s readings, “The Power of Identity Politics” and “Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina”, furthered my understanding of identity politics on a more personal level and also, gave me a better understanding of how the adage, “the personal is political”, and the movement that came along with it, wasn’t inclusive to all women. As Garza stated in chapter 12 of her book, “Black women could not and still cannot afford a women’s movement that sees gender oppression only through the lens of white women. This has been an underlying principle of Black feminism—the notion that the experiences of black women are unique and complex and must be seen as such to achieve the goal of eradicating those differences”. When we first learned about “the personal is political” a few weeks ago, I thought it was truly inspiring to see women come together and rally against those who oppressed us into fitting the molds they wanted to squeeze us in, but after these two past readings on black feminism, it was disheartening to learn that this wasn’t the case. To better understand the definition of identity politics, one of Garza’s statements stood out to me: “Thus, identity politics is the radical notion that your worldview is shaped by your experiences and history and that those experiences will vary in relationship to the power a group or an individual has in the economy, society, and democracy”. This statement, or definition rather, also goes hand in hand with what Aleicha Williams was saying in her reading Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina. Similar to the white girl at the bar in Garza’s reading and the Hispanic girls in Williams’ reading, people tend to separate people into “boxes” that have nothing to do with who they truly are without realizing they are being offensive. People often do not notice how big of an impact their words can have on someone and it happens too often than not.