1. We ought not get caught up with the red herring of “identity politics.” At its core, identity politics involve questions/concerns about justice. Talk of equal pay for women is a justice issue. Talk of equal treatment under the law for black people is a justice issue.
2. The irony, of course, is that political appeals to white, blue collar workers or white evangelical Christians or white rural America aren’t seen as forms of “identity politics”. Those appeals are read as claims about the so-called common good.
3. The complaints of white working America aren’t read as wallowing in victimhood. This fact speaks volumes about who is valued more in this country and how that fact shapes policy.
4. There is always a strong political undertow to easy dismissals of “identity politics.” But we shouldn’t get caught up in it. Instead, we must understand it all within the context of particular justice claims that affect particular groups precisely because of who they are.
5. If the Democratic Party falls for the easy dismissal of so-called identity politics again or engage only in symbolic overtures to particular groups because it is in hot pursuit of white, blue collar voters, it will lose again and again.
6. I refused to concede to the demand that any appeal to justice requires, for example, that Black people leave the specificity of who we are and of the hell we are catching at the door.
