This week’s reading helped expand my understanding of identity politics, as I read The Power of Identity Politics, Garza goes in-depth on what identity politics are. The very first thing she mentions was to understand why identity politics is important is to define power. She does raise identity politics conflicts, pointing out the challenges entailed by standing in solidarity with other discriminated groups. As read Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina, Willams expands on learning how to embrace every aspect of your own identity. She mentioned how she had her very first race crisis that when that happened she was already aware of her skin color but the overwhelming implications it held. I assume when she was at that race crisis, not a lot of people her skin type was represented and now that she lives in texas her identity was unique in that she didn’t see many dark-skinned girls… overall what Williams made me understand is that embrace every aspect of your identity. At the very she says, “Also, I’m human. No one can take that from me.” I totally agree with her on this. We are humans and yeah we can come out in different shades but overall embrace our own identity.

I really liked this week’s readings, as I feel like they really taught me a lot more than what I knew before about identity politics. I wasn’t aware that it was made by Black feminists, I’m really happy to have learned that, but it sucks that it feels like another thing that Black feminists have done that I personally feel goes under the radar, but I’m honestly not sure if how I feel is what’s really known. I love the context and intentions of them creating identity politics, and it’s something that I will hold onto going forward.

I hope to learn more about gender and identity politics going forward, including the deep dives into feminism. I really love learning about it and I feel like it is really important to understand, especially right now when so many people refuse to get behind a lot of these things, regardless of them being genuinely good for everyone.

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.

In the reading from The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Garza says about the views of those in power, “unable to acknowledge why there are those who can not separate their lived experience from the identities they have adopted or have been given to them, without choice or agency.” This really helps me understand Identity Politics because it reframes the problem by calling out wrong thinking. Pointing out that an identity, whether chosen or not, is political and effects a person’s life in political matters that are bigger than them. Denying that this is real, denying that there are Politics of identity is the exact reason there is Identity Politics.

A perfect example of this is in the article Too Latina to be Black, to Black to be Latina by Aleichia Williams. Aleichia fits into too many categories than have been made for her to fit into. She is black, she is Latina, and she has moved to a place in the US where their range of identities is much narrower than where she came from in NYC. In NYC there is more room for people to be more diverse than the tiny boxes they’re forced to fit into. But when you see her go to a place that’s even smaller and she experiences what her identity means in real time. The new kids at her school are pretty much telling her she doesn’t make sense because she is too diverse, too mixed, she is making them question what they thought they knew so well about their own identities.

This is a perfect example of being forced into an identity, even when she didn’t want to. She had to become completely aware of the fact that she was both Latina and black, and that identity had to become a part of her life because it was effecting her life. To deny that Identity Politics exists is to deny this very real experience. People are living by identities they have taken on without even knowing it, they are limiting themselves by an identity they didn’t create and don’t question. Until someone comes along who is both of those identities and blows their mind. Then she has to have the experiences of becoming aware that she has an identity that never existed for her before.

Identities are constructs of place and mind. That, in turn, is someones reality. I do think that Identity Politics is confusing, but I understand that there are Identities in Politics.

We learn something different from each woman Alicia Garza, Aleichia Williams and Gloria Anzaldua. Identity politics has become a punching bag of liberals and conservatives alike. Identity politics, particularly the “identity” part can help shape our understanding of the problems marginalized people face. It is an inevitable stage that we must pass through in our journey towards universal human rights. It is an immutable characteristic, one that could be changed, but which no one should be required to change. I believe all women deserve to be powerful, every day we confront things that we believe we have no control over. Honestly, I’m not sure what I would like to learn more about, politics is mind boggling, but I will say as a black African American woman I would like to gain knowledge of more women empowerment, working collectively to resolve these issues, how to understand these new terms that surround the LGBTQ community and continue to educate myself on these political issues that we do face even if it does give me a headache.

The power of identity politics brings us to the realization that although we have changed in some ways like being more diverse and inclusive, however there are many things that are being ignored and pushed aside. Identity politics is both simple and hard to define because of American conservatives demonizing the term to their advantaged. White people have always had the power to change the narrative to benefit their beliefs or views. In this chapter we are introduced to the blond-haired woman in the bar who says I wish people would not say those things, can we all just be human in shorter words. Which is very dismissive of the experiences of Black communities and minorities groups. The fact is white people in power make the most important decisions. Whiteness is everywhere in the movies we watch, the make-up we wear, the band aids selection we have and even the down to the stockings that women of color had to pick from. White identity politics do exist, it is there to control the power of others and to make sure they stay ahead always. Never consider the experiences of others and the change that needs to happen to spread equal power to people (Black and minorities) in a more diverse America. Many white Americans do not want to remember the pain and suffering of the Black community, especially when it comes to Black women and the things, they were forced into doing, like for example breast feeding white babies while having not choice and neglect their own babies. That is why the Combahee River collective exist because Black feminist could no longer tend to the needs of white women and fight for their freedoms.  

America was built of off the backs of minorities and the genocide of the natives of this land. The white political parties invented class, race, politics, and power. They have reaped all the benefits from our suffering and things have not changed. They continue to dismiss and mention how we are all human and that we should just come together BS. At the end of the chapter the author writes about an article that a white man wrote about instead of finding what divides us let us find what unifies us. This within itself is white identity politics at work. This is doing a big injustice to the other communities because it is not that simple. We must dismantle the political system in order to make the actual change we want to see.  

In regards to the reading of Too Latina to be black , this actually resonates with me being i am of “the brown skinned Puerto Rican heritage” I get confused for everything but that. It used to offend me when I was young but as I got older I just laughed it off. I would hear things like you look Asian, or your too dark to be Hispanic all the hits. The part where the author states ” I don’t know who to side with” is a question most children ask themselves, especially when you do not resemble what people perceive as the norm when it comes to ones ethnic identity. This article reinforces the importance of having a political space for people such as the ones written about in the article. The ones that feel lost or without a voice.

The Power of Identity Politics, Gives you a better understanding of why we need to shine a light on the subject of identity politics. A quote that stands out to me is one on page 187 ” Those who have power rarely want to acknowledge that they have unearthed benefits at the expense of others”. This perfectly describes the pushback or the attempt to deny or suppress identity politics. The idea is to represent those who have no representation, no voice politically. Allot of issues politically concerning oppressed brown people have been swept under the wrong or pushed to the side. Identity politics forces America to look under that rug for once and who really wants to do that?

For the remaining classes I would like for the class to think of some fun and interesting ways to have a dialogue between people from different ethnic, religious, gender backgrounds . Usually when we bring up these sensitive topics its seems chaotic and never really civilized , its always people talking at each other and nothing is solved. Another topic I thought would be engrossing is some what of a hypothetical. Lets say hypothetically each one of us woke up as a different ethnicity. How would your approach to be life be different ?, how is the ethnicity you woke up as perceived in the media?, where does the ethnicity you woke up as fit in status wise?, Does this ethnicity need to be elevated? if so how would you help elevate them?.

Another topic id like to discuss would be how art makes it way through oppression , as was the case with “Paris is burning” , they celebrated in the face of persecution and tragedy. This is the case with many art forms, hip hop, graffiti and even fashion .

In further examining identity politics in this weeks’ readings of “The Power of Identity Politics” by Alicia Garza and “Too Latina to be Black, Too Black to be Latina” by Aleichia Williams, I particularly appreciated Garza’s sentiments on grappling with the histories of oppression. That unless we are able to examine how powers of oppression were first formed and perpetrated, we are unable to comprehend the ways in which they still exist. There is a strong desire to dismiss oppression as something of the past, as though we aren’t still participating in it. But I think this is why identity politics are so powerful. Who better to understand and speak to our own oppressions than ourselves. We have unique insight into the effects our oppression might have on us. Especially when facing intersections of oppressions, we can see the ways those oppressions layer and compound on top of one another.

In these past weeks I have really enjoyed our explorations of gender and would love to pursue that more. Following last week’s assignment I read bell hooks’ essay “Is Paris Burning?”. I agreed with her criticisms of Livingston for the most part, but I sometimes struggled with her criticisms of the gay, drag, and trans performers. While all of her criticisms were more than valid, I felt they perhaps oversimplified or took a singular perspective on what I think is a multi faceted and layered experience. Perhaps I view the film through a modern lens, so while I see the misogyny and idealized white femininity, I know that is not true of all drag, at least not today. I do agree that, with the exception of Dorian Corey, most of the subjects do not seem to consciously critique race, gender, and class in their performance, or at least are not portrayed to do so. Does this mean that the criticism doesn’t exist? 

As I’ve said before, I never come away from watching this film with clear answers, however reading bell hooks’ essay did make me think of her writings on language in “Teaching to Transgress”. She sites the line “This is the oppressor’s language yet I need it to speak to you” from Adrienne Rich’s poem, “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children”. She goes on to discuss English as the language of colonization; diminishing black vernacular and erasing native languages. Her discussions of the power of language and reclaiming make me think of our visual expressions of race, gender, and class in the context of “Paris is Burning” and how frequently in these cases we only have the oppressor’s language to communicate with. She goes on to explore the power of the oppressed claiming the oppressor’s language:

I imagine them hearing spoken English as the oppressor’ language, yet I imagine them also realizing that this language would need to be possessed, taken, claimed as a space of resistance. I imagine that the moment they realized the oppressor’s language, seized and spoken by the tongues of the colonized could be a space of bonding was joyous. For in that recognition was the understanding that intimacy could be restored, that a culture of resistance could be formed that would make recovery from the trauma of enslavement possible. I imagine, then, Africans first hearing English as “the oppressor’s language” and then re-hearing it as a potential site of resistance. 

hooks, “Teaching to Transgress”, 171

And then discusses the ways the oppressed then reshaped the language:

Needing the oppressor’s language to speak with one another they nevertheless also reinvented, remade that language so that it would speak beyond the boundaries of conquest and domination. In the mouths of black Africans in the so-called “New World,” English was altered, transformed, and became a different speech. Enslaved black people took broken bits of English and made of them a counter-language.

hooks, “Teaching to Transgress”, 172

I see this transgressive quality of claiming and reinventing the language present in “Paris is Burning” in the representations of white wealth on black bodies. An assertion and defiance that they are deserving and capable of achieving the status that white supremacy has barred them from. 

Beyond “Paris is Burning”, I see this oppressor’s visual language, if you will, exhibited in gender expressions. In some way one must use this language of the binary to express their deviance from its norms. It is true that there are gender neutral forms of expression, but if one wishes to express either more masculine or feminine facets of themselves, it seems they are almost forced to use this language of gender oppression to subvert it.

Perhaps I am misconstruing both bell hooks’ writing and these forms of expression, but if anything I feel that illustrates how I might benefit from further exploration and discussion of these ideas.

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.