Where would you put a line on what is in the domain of intersectionality and what is in the domain of identity politics?
Is it possible for people to confuse one with the other? I’ve felt a lot that the criticism of identity politics eventually leads to some people branding intersectional approach as IdPol, which I personally thing might have reactionary roots.
Are there good sources for the distinction, how would you define the difference?
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Intersectionality is a liberal feminist concept to be sure, but this correction in a direction opposed to “identity politics” is embarrassingly bad as well. It is important to recognize the ways in which oppression acts along multiple axes, but both these tendencies make the same mistake, that is, thinking that class is an axis which is distinct from the others. Rather, these other axes are component pieces of what we understand as class. It is absolutely crucial to investigate a message based on its contents rather than who it is coming from. However, the message from many “leftists” so often boils down to trying to convince oppressed minorities to ignore their oppression and ally with people who only promise that this oppression will be dealt with in the future. Obviously this ignores the opportunist history of the white “left” like the multiple betrayals of the Black working class by the white American working class.
The line is simple: a correct message is correct regardless of who is delivering it. However, a person delivering a message is not a neutral entity, and their identity plays into the message that they are likely to deliver. So yes, while we shouldn’t assume that all members of an oppressed minority group are correct by merely being part of that group, neither should we assume that the answer to this is to form some imaginary class alliance which will immediately sell out the struggles of their minority groups once their own reformist needs are met.
I am sorry for not using the language that best communicates this (am ESL so I am not gonna be good at using the “correct” language). What I mean is I see time to time see sexism, homophobia, racism etc being discarded completely while almost recultantly recognized as agendas. I am myself a minority in my own country, and I’ve encountered problems that I really only got understaning from people with similar oppression (racialized, etc) and almost complete dismissal from everyone else, to the point of agreeing with right wingers but because they think what we say is undermining eveything. To the point that my distaste with being called slurs was deemed as idpol immediately.
And a lot of leftists over here assume that just because they’re leftists, they’re exempt from propaganda and reactionary ideas and what spaces they create are as such as well, where everyone is already equal, like a pocket dimension. And sometimes it’s coated in “left language”, they can even cite the works out of context to justify why they exclude racialized people. etc. So I developed intense frustration and am not sure what I’m doing wrong
Your english is fine. You’re correct to identify this as a problem, and people like this, far from being allies, are social fascists and the enemies of communism. I am immediately wary of anyone that talks about “identity politics”. What this really reveals is the class interest of these so-called socialists, that they expect the question of liberation for minorities to be left to the future. This is a perspective I can understand within a national liberation movement, as the contradictions of imperialism weigh more on the nationally oppressed than the contradictions within the national liberation movement itself. That being said, it doesn’t sound like you’re involved in a national liberation movement, but perhaps a first world “working class” one.
Edit: to be clear about what I mean by the internal contradictions taking a back seat, take the example of why we don’t humor liberals when they talk about Hamas or IRGC’s stances on gay people. These are not places where the internal contradictions currently outweigh the impact of 80 years of genocide and a decades long siege, respectively, and by this I mean that the west is currently oppressing minority groups within these nations much more profoundly than any oppression they may face internally. But notice this isn’t a conversation about identity politics but a question of internal vs external contradictions. Once the external is resolved, the internal contradictions will come to the forefront. In your case it sounds like the internal contradictions are already front and centre, so what exactly is to be gained from these people who call themselves leftists?