This week’s readings have made identity politics and its importance very clear to me. I can define it as basing your agenda on very specific personal experiences, rather than a part of your experiences that also belong to someone else. To take Aleichia Williams as an example, she is not just Black. She is not just Latina. She owns both titles equally and perhaps many others, such as “woman,” “activist,” “writer,” and so on. They create her identity, but also pose disadvantages, unique to her. In opposition to a popular belief that identity politics divide society even more, I would say it can do the opposite. Identity politics show that we all are different, yet we are all human and live in the same world; it also allows people to understand the suffering of others better and creates a sense of urgency to fix the suffering. To hear a sad story about a broad community of thousands of people is not usually as convincing as to hear a story about a specific person. It’s more striking and emotional. And thus produces faster results on both ends: those who tell the story act more eager; those who listen are more willing to do it.

“Power of Identity Politics” by Alicia Garza focuses a lot on power and what it has to do with identity politics. Those who have power can cultivate oppression, but only if it’s done invisibly, behind the curtain. Garza explains that “so-called identity politics tries to make that invisible power seen,” and that’s where its necessity lies (187).
This reading fixed my misconception that the concept is new and applies only to “focusing on our own oppression.” Identity politics are also about acknowledging differences such as race, calling them by their names, noticing the unequal power within them, and not trying to blend in with someone else’s identity. I realized that identity politics is the name for a type of activism that I’m seeing everywhere and every day but just didn’t know how to call it.

I would love to learn more about gender in the context of children and parenting, as well as some stories from recent years concerning gender roles and how it has been changing through times and cultures.