Class And Identity Are Not A Binary

Class and Identity are Not A Binary
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You know that snapping sound you make with your tongue and teeth you make when a toddler does something that’s outright destructive, but essentially inevitable? When the recent hailing of “The End of Identity Liberalism” passed my eyeballs, I made that sound. This was waiting in the wings since Donald Trump won and I’m surprised it took that long.

I’m a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I talk about class and related issues a lot. I spent the primary discussing how these issues have been ignored, calling for systemic change along with a lot of other people with a huge variety of backgrounds. If I don’t say something about the supposed end of caring about who people are and how it unjustly limits their rights, though, I can’t help but feel I’m part of the problem.

Identity is a necessity to progressive politics and should never be purged.

The problem we are having on the left is exactly the one the reactionary right wants us to: fractured intent. If the left ever wishes to be effective against the kind of unified front these proto-fascists are presenting, we have to be both multifaceted and united. We need to acknowledge and welcome concerns on identity, class, healthcare, environmentalism, and a slew of other categories of issues.

If you don’t get identity, that’s fine! You aren’t Satan. You still need to not actively try to thwart or discredit identity politics. If you don’t understand class politics, also fine. It doesn’t have to be your responsibility. You also aren’t Satan, but some of you need to stop calling people who don’t understand identity “horrible people.”

Here’s the problem: class and identity are intrinsically related. Pretending they aren’t is creating a totally ridiculous binary to have a very personally gratifying — but extremely damaging — fight within.

For the class people: identity is like sub-classes within class who have it worse off. The working class also has people of color, trans people, many people in it, and they are also working. They are also losing jobs. They are also suffering. They have to deal with a slew of other problems on top of the problems of working class white folks — that doesn’t make them “not the working class.”

Beyond that, poverty is a marginalization vector in many ways — both generalized in class and specific to identity.

What class politics people need to realize is that while they are correct in the assertion that their politics will benefit the marginalized folks of this country, it won’t address many people’s specific problems. For instance, a $15 minimum wage for the working class would be fantastic! It will help a lot of struggling and marginalized people. But what about hiring practices? What about intrinsic bias that has been repeatedly proven? Women, people of color, get hired at significantly higher rates in blind interview processes.

Class politics doesn’t touch on these very specific issues.

On the same coin, “identity people,” an exclusive focus on identity doesn’t touch the fact that a if a trans woman gets a job due to non-discriminatory hiring practices, she might get hired on minimum wage. This is a starvation wage and hasn’t kept up with inflation. What about single-payer healthcare? Why aren’t we talking about making one, single system that can provide health at a fraction of the cost if billionaires are made to pay their fair share in taxes?

That’d also mean every health provider is playing by one single set of rules, not many state-specific ones, which would make it significantly easier to ensure everyone gets the kind of care they need — including trans folks.

The working class does not mean “white guys on construction sites.” Are sex workers not part of the working class? This is why class and identity should complement one another. White guys on construction sites are people — and so are a myriad of other people. The black working class, for instance, has its own set of issues that simply focusing entirely on class will not solve. We have to treat each other like people.

Let’s talk hypothetically for a moment.

A poor Native American trans woman is blasted by a freezing water cannon protesting an oil pipeline on her nation’s land. This very well could have happened in the last week, too. Let’s acknowledge what happened regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline here.

If we’re only supposed to talk about class, identity, healthcare, environmentalism or some other thing, specifically, we don’t have a solution for this person or the marginalized group they are a part of. Nor does it fix the environmental situation this creates. Talking about class politics alone doesn’t help Native Americans or stop a multinational corporation from ruining the environment and stealing their land, nor does it treat a hypothetical trans protester’s frostbite.

Class politics doesn’t address the full breadth of that, but neither does identity politics, healthcare advocacy, or environmentalism.

This isn’t a call to compromise between class and identity; the falsest of false binaries is class and identity. More importantly, there is no middle between them — these do not exist as a spectrum, for they are categories of political action and concern. This is a call to acknowledge that class and identity are two aspects of many in one thing: progress.

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