What is Identity Politics?

What follows is some thoughts on identity politics in hopes people understand the need to look at things through the lens of identity in addition to any other lens. I want to assert that identity is a category of political concern — not competition to class politics in the binary we’re falsely sold in modern left wing discourse. We need both. We need more than both.

I hope you feel it’s worth your time.

-Peter

My home state of Michigan went for Trump in 2016, but before that it was a soft-blue state, albeit with a Republican governor and state congress (thanks to gerrymandering). Before I did any work on my YouTube channel, I worked in what amounts to the only urban area in a mostly rural area. In a sea of white farmers, Benton Harbor, Michigan is an island. According to the 2010 Census, the city’s population is 89.2% black.

Benton Harbor is notable for quite a few reasons. For one, it’s the birthplace of Ernie Hudson, who you may know as Winston of the original Ghostbusters film. It was also the primary target in Michigan’s first round post-millennium of austerity — and still feeling the effects today. Whirlpool Corporation — the one that makes your fridge — has its international headquarters there. Yes, a company that makes $20 billion in revenue has its headquarters in a poor city with a population of 12,000.

Benton Harbor had major financial issues, running at very least a $10 million deficit, and elected leaders were replaced thanks to then-Governor Democrat Jennifer Granholm’s order to appoint “emergency staff” and an “emergency manager.” Benton Harbor was regarded as the “poster child” for this initiative.

The stated intent was to clean up the city’s finances, but the actual intent was to spur gentrification in a small, mostly-black city where the average person’s income is $17,000 and home to a massive appliance company — one with an astoundingly large revenue but doesn’t pay any kind of taxes to the city.

It’s hard to imagine a $10 million deficit in a city where a company with $20 billion in revenue pays their fair share in taxes, though. Whirlpool has also somehow stockpiled federal tax credits that offset its need to pay a damn thing for years to come. Whirlpool is everything you hear about companies hoarding wealth and avoiding tax.

A state of “emergency rule” forced the city to take loans and give up revenue in the name of balancing their books for much of the last decade, all at the expense of the people who live and work there. This was imposed due to “gross financial mismanagement,” but it’s interesting to ponder the money that would actually be coming in to a city filled with people who have no money and a multinational corporation that doesn’t pay taxes. In return, Whirlpool built a grand new office building in downtown Benton Harbor — I guess they didn’t have enough office space in their other one.

Whirlpool was founded by Louis Upton, whose grandson is Republican Representative Fred Upton. As of 2014, Fred had a net worth of $7.3 million dollars. Without thinking about it, you probably know the Uptons are white. You can probably imagine where that $7.3 million dollars came from. You can also probably imagine the fact that $7.3 million is still $7.3 million even after taking, say, $17k out if it — the average person’s income means nothing to this man.

A couple of Fred Upton’s aides, John Proos and Al Pscholka, over the years were elected into various positions in Michigan’s state government. Can you see the kind of conflict of interest one has in being a major stockholder in a massive corporation (Upton is), being a lawmaker in the US Senate (Upton is), and having two former aides in the state government (Proos is in the State Senate, while Pscholka is in the State House)? Do you see how they could work in concert to Whirlpool’s benefit? Do you see why it is in their interests to engage in tactics that target and vilify black people?

Because the main thing in these people’s way is a city of mainly black people.

After extensive searching, it appears Whirlpool does not post its employee demographics publicly, but I’d venture to guess that it doesn’t employ 89.2% black people. I’d go as far to say I don’t think there’s even a tiny chance they hire racially proportionate to their host city — or hell, even a sizable number of people that live in Benton Harbor, considering the extremely low average income. I’d wager the median would be a bit higher if more Whirlpool jobs were included.

On December 15, 2014, a leader in the fight for social and economic justice for citizens of Benton Harbor, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, was sentenced to serve up to 10 years in prison for supposedly changing dates on a petition to recall then-Mayor James Hightower — a Whirlpool “sympathizer” who had worked to protect their local tax amnesty among other interests.

There was no real evidence to suggest Rev. Pinkney actually did this. None. In the Reverend’s own words:

Whirlpool controls not only Benton Harbor and the residents, but also the court system itself. They will do anything to crush you if you stand up to them. That’s why it’s so important to fight this. I’m going to fight them until the end. This is not just an attack on Rev. Pinkney. It’s an attack on every single person that lives in Benton Harbor, in the state and around the country. We got to fix this jury system. There was not one person from Benton Harbor, not one person from Benton Township on the jury. Anytime a Black man is sitting inside that courtroom and the jury is all white, that is a major problem.

Benton Harbor’s problems don’t just revolve around a multinational corporation ripping off the black folks living there, though. Sometimes the police — whom in an 89% black city, are 80% white — kill black people there, too.

In 2003, a black man by the name of Arthur Partee had an outstanding warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket. Before we go any further, I want to say that this is a problem I have had in my own life. The only time I’ve ever been arrested was for this very thing. Also, when I was arrested for it, I was eating a hot dog and the officer who knocked on my door let me finish it.

I’m white, though. Arthur Partee was a black man.

When police came to his home, Arthur was treated aggressively. Because of this, he died in a struggle with police.

The cops say Partee resisted — and why wouldn’t they? From their perspective, that’s likely what happened. But witnesses were very specific describing a situation where outside the house, police used a chokehold on an already-subdued suspect.

The only indoor witness was Partee’s mother, and because of that, there was a large dispute over whether or not Partee resisted the police. I’d argue that is not even relevant looking back on the case. Even if he did resist, that’s hardly a legitimate reason to kill an unarmed person.

The Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals eventually oversaw the lawsuit Arthur Partee’s mother filed — and had this to say in their decision:

“At the end of the struggle, Partee lay handcuffed and face down on the ground. His mother, having witnessed the entire interaction, realized that her son was in trouble at that point and implored the officers to help him. In response, they told her that Partee was ‘just faking’ and ‘playing possum.’ The two officers finally turned Partee over and slapped him in the face, attempting to get him to respond. When he did not, they removed his handcuffs and initiated CPR, but without success. By the time medics were called and arrived at the residence, Partee was no longer breathing and had no detectable pulse. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.”

The medical examiner opined that the cause of Arthur Partee’s death was “asphyxia associated with physical restraint.” Do you think this would happen to a white man? Do you think this happens to more people “per capita” with white folks or black folks? Do you think the percentages line up?

If you heard somewhere that he “wasn’t an angel,” did you think it justified his death? To me, that narrative has never rung true a single time with any unarmed individual who ended up dead after a police incident. None of us are angels. Angels are not real.

The black folks of Benton Harbor have been experiencing the power of those that want them gone — just as many black folks around the country are. This is essentially what we call “gentrification,” which I mentioned is the actual intent behind the stated intent of the actions of governments and private interests have taken in the small city.

Michigan civil rights lawyer Hugh Davis doesn’t call it “gentrification,” but rather another G word:

The thrust is to physically remove and destroy families through the use of the criminal justice system. Every person they can put in jail; every person whose voting rights they can revoke with a felony conviction; every person they can cause to lose their job by putting them on probation; every person they can cause to lose the ability to pay for basic necessities through imposing ruinous court costs and probation is all part of the process. In the 1960s, it was called “Negro removal.” In Bosnia, it was called “ethnic cleansing.” It could be called “genocide,” the removal of the minority population for the purpose of redevelopment of the land. That’s what’s happening in Benton Harbor.

In 2016, the Washington Post said 23 unarmed (or carrying a toy-weapon) black people were killed by police in the United States (here’s the 2017 tally). This is not “had their civil rights violated,” but specifically killed. 45 completely unarmed (or carrying a toy-weapon) white people experienced the same fate. Sounds like a lot more white people, right? The discrepancy is that there are 197 million white people in our country — and 37 million black people. Those percentages favor white people. This implies a black person is 5.3 times more likely to be shot to death by the police in this way.

Two months after Arthur Partee was killed, a motorcyclist by the name of Terrance Shurn was also killed. Accounts of the incident describe Shurn riding his motorcycle through the city when a police car who was tailing him just a bit too closely started to repeatedly bump him from behind. Every witness who spoke on the incident called it harassment in one way or another, and Mr. Shurn sped off, most likely believing this same thing.

We could cite studies about how black people are treated worse in police incidents until the cows come home, but it’s not just academics that know this. Black people do too — shocking, I know. Black people are aware that their cooperation is often rewarded with their human rights being violated. They are also sometimes rewarded by being murdered in cold blood.

Shurn chose to speed off in an escape attempt. Another police car cut him off, causing him to lose control of his motorcycle and resulting in a head-on collision with a building.

The officer driving the Benton Township PD car that forced the motorcycle into the building was white. Benton Township PD’s jurisdiction includes the city as well as some suburbs surrounding it — white ones. Mark Lundin was his name and he reportedly gave the other officer present several high fives in the presence of Terence Shurn’s dead body. There are more than 40 witnesses that attested to this.

Supposedly Shurn ran a stop sign, but as far as I’m aware, the protocol for that is not bumping a person riding a two-wheeled vehicle with a V8-powered car. If I’m not mistaken, the police are supposed to pull the offender over for this — you know, like any other traffic offense.

After Shurn’s death, around 200 people showed up to a previously-scheduled trustees meeting to speak up about this police brutality. They couldn’t take it anymore. Many, including Shurn himself, had plans to leave the city. He was going to move to Florida in June to attend college.

Why? Because getting a job in Benton Harbor is damn near impossible for anyone who lives in Benton Harbor. Which is kind of funny, considering that a company worth many billions of dollars and openly brags about their “diverse hiring practices” resides in the city. It’s disconcerting they have the nerve to say things like that while around 75% of the city’s 89% black population is unemployed.

Benton Harbor saw massive unrest after the deaths of Shurn and Partee. They were the last straw — back in 2003. People speaking with the media covering the civil unrest said things like “we hope accounts about conditions here go out far and wide,” and that “the experiences of the African American community have not been fairly or accurately reported.” Funny enough, the national media did cover it. However, the city was represented as one filled with criminals rioting over a criminal committing crimes.

This is identity politics. The classification given to the raising of identity-specific concerns in political discourse. The Civil Rights Movement was identity politics. Period.

I’ve spoken specifically about black folks because there is a very visible history of black people fighting for their rights in this country — one that has been lauded as successful and widely considered to be a good thing.

Over the years, people’s referencing of events becomes very fuzzy and the politics of respectability rears its head, whitewashing successful leaders like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Since Mr. King is unable to speak for himself, things about him are used to silence dissent. He wore a suit, spoke incredibly eloquently (significantly moreso than what his detractors want people to believe black people speak like), and had a message of true equality.

He also sincerely indicted the “white moderate.”

I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In addition, King was a Democratic Socialist:

You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

Funny how people don’t talk about King’s distaste for white moderates or taste for socialism. It’s like narrative is really important to people wanting to cover up history or bend it to their will.

Charitably assuming the police involved in the killings I detailed earlier were not consciously racist in any way, they were still likely pretty ignorant of the black experience. I would say that I am as well. I’m not going to pretend the existence a black person lives is for me to relay to you — there’s a large number of books and publications based in real, first-person perspective you have no excuse for not having read. Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” is a good place to start. But I am going to tell you that there’s an excruciatingly different standard applied to black people — and other people of color, for that matter — than white people.

A lot of the reason identity politics is a conversation we need to continually have is that a lot of this stuff is not legal to do — if you state race as your reason for doing it. If Whirlpool’s various moves were labelled openly as “getting the black people out so we can make a nice golf course and luxury housing for rich white assholes,” then it wouldn’t have happened. Ever.

When people set out to harm a minority of people in the modern age of “equality,” they do it nebulously. It’s not just secret, it’s totally abstract. It may never be stated to anyone in definite terms — even those working in concert to achieve the goals set forth. Indeed, the main actors may even believe they are not acting in the interests of bigotry.

The politics of identity are meant to counteract this.

Naming these actions and showing how they affect people of a certain identity either exclusively or moreso than groups of differing identities is imperative in any society we call “free” or “equal.” None of this stuff is ever going to be comfortable, and if one loves the idea of America itself, they will probably be disappointed if they actually accept what marginalized people are saying about what is going on. Sadly, that doesn’t stop these things from happening.

Obviously, black folks are not the only marginalized people in our country. As a society, we are not kind to people who are trans, queer, non-binary, gay, or otherwise just not straight, white, cis or male. This is why straight, white, cis males are often looked at with some degree of anger. To be “the group that doesn’t get targeted for being a group” ensures a fairly insulated life experience.

I am of that identity and I get why people are uncomfortable with that kind of criticism. None of us were actually involved in the creation of today’s circumstances, and a lot of us think we’re very much against that sort of thing. When you call a white man racist, you’d think it were a racial slur towards us.

The problem isn’t sensitivity, though the world could truly do with more of that. The problem is people acting sensitive for reasons they are not entitled to be sensitive about.

If you’re in “the group who doesn’t get targeted for being a group,” you shouldn’t act like racism against white people is a real problem in your life. White men actually do run the place. Making the generous assumption none of them are white supremacists, that’s still white supremacy. White men still occupy more seats. If “supremacy” still means “the state or condition of being superior to all others in authority, power, or status,” then even if there is no element of bigotry involved whatsoever, that is a supremacy of white men.

That this is ever regarded as a threat to one’s identity is preposterous. Those in the upper echelons care about the average straight, white, cis male about as much as they do a trans Native American woman. The straight, white, cis man’s only advantage is their usefulness. There’s a whole lot of him, and he can buy a hell of a lot of useless shit and vote for people that look like him.

He needs to see how others suffer because he isn’t aware of it. It doesn’t matter how hard he resists, eventually a significant number of “him” is going to realize these people with problems he doesn’t directly deal with are leading lives much closer to his than the CEO of whatever company makes his favorite power fantasy or those old perverts he votes for.

If we truly think identity is something we should just stop talking about, we shut out the problems of way too many people for us to continue to call ourselves progressive.