This is quite insightful. It is my hope that insight like this helps people to understand why the neoliberal fixation with identity politics is so horribly toxic.
Who are the victims of identity politics? Many of the faux-left will immediately assume that those victims are justifiably white working class men. After all, within the identity politics paradigm it is the white working class who are the source of evil in the world, and thus much effort is expended in casting blame for everything on them and attempting to shift responsibility for the problems of the world onto them.
At one level, this is just a generalized society-wide version of adult children of alcoholics bemoaning the imperfections of their daddy, and that point itself is worth a detailed discussion all its own. More on topic is the point that the true victims of identity politics are not the ones notionally being “called out” for their bad thoughts about subsets of society that adhere to particular identities. Rather the true victims of identity politics are those who have been convinced that in order to experience the benefits of identity politics they must adhere to a particular identity. Invariably this is not an identity of their own creation. This identity they must conform to is created by corporate mass media. It is crucial to note that it is not the news infotainment corporate mass media that creates these identities! Sitcoms, romcoms, blockbuster movies, and even cartoons and cooking shows manufacture the identities at the heart of identity politics.
While the proponents of identity politics will proclaim that the biggest beneficiaries of their chosen dogma are Black Americans (this, strangely enough, also seems to apply in Europe too), the reality is that those who build their identity around “Black American” are identity politics’ biggest victims. Adopting “Black American”, along with the simplistic caricature-like traits and characteristics that accompany it, as the most central aspect of one’s identity is every bit as restrictive or confining as manacles or a prison cell.
We develop much of our identity in late adolescence, and the pressure to adopt a particular identity maxes out for Americans in high school. From that point on much of our identity becomes relatively fixed. While new experiences can force our identities into flux and allow us an opportunity to redefine ourselves, the sad fact is that most Americans don’t get out much. Having been an educator in a variety of environments, I have witnessed many thousands of young people from different walks of life and even different countries entirely as they formed their core identities. None have faced anywhere near the intense pressure to conform to so rigidly a defined identity as have young Black American males.
Interestingly, the American white working class almost never has “white” as the core of their identity. If that factors in anywhere at all it is far below “plumber” or “truck driver”, “husband”, “father”, “Dallas Cowboys fan”, “guy who owns a Ford”, “guy with a Southern accent”, and even “guy who likes fishing”. If prompted to think ethnically, their Irishness or Polishness absolutely dominates over considerations of whiteness.
Even more interesting is that this failure of almost all white working class people to center their identity around the social construct of race is seen by proponents of identity politics as a flaw rather than the advantage that it is. That few white working class people are willing to voluntarily don the manacles of a ridiculously confining artificial identity is treated as proof that they are the problem. Rather than advocating that others in society cast off their artificial identities and free themselves, the neoliberals insist that in the pursuit of fairness the white working class must force itself into an artificial identity of the neoliberals’ creation… kinda like the approach to fixing society found in Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”.
Of course, there is a very simple reason that the neoliberals pursue this kind of “fix” for society. If people abandon their artificial, corporate-manufactured identities, then it becomes far more difficult for the corporate elites who rule society to set society against itself (and thus distract from the corporate elites’ rule) by simply displaying identity caricatures in conflict on their Plato’s-Cave display screens that exist in every American home. Without this manufactured conflict the population absolutely will gang up on the corporate elites and challenge them for control of society.
In short, identity politics is necessary for the survival of capitalism. Capitalism chains and controls the population via their identities.