In the reading The Power of Identity Politics, Garza gives me a deeper understanding of what identity politics are. In order to understand identity politics, power has to be defined which Garza defines it as someone being able to make decisions that influence you or other people’s lives and “the freedom to shape and determine the story of who we are”. Garza continues to explain “those who have power rarely want to acknowledge that they have unearned benefits at the expense of others”. Many people might refer to this power as “white privilege” and many people deny that this is a thing but it is in fact true. An example of white privilege would be a cop stopping a white male in a vehicle and being calm and collective because of the person’s race. While that same cop pulls over a black male and automatically begins yelling at the individual and being aggressive because he is black. Identity politics is used to describe how people who aren’t white, gay, or cisgender men live and experience these times and are not a part of the “normal” definition that has been created. Garza gives the example of a scientific experiment: the white people along with their culture and experiences would be the control group that is compared to everything else. Anyone who is of another race, skin tone, or any other category would be considered the experimental group.

I would like to learn more about sexuality politics and maybe something about feminist methodologies.