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Identity Politics Quotes

Browse 79 quotes about Identity Politics.

Identity Politics Quotes

“Die israelische Gesellschaft ist schon lange ein schillerndes Mosaik zwischen zwei Polen –Demokratie und Religion. Wie könnte es auch anders sein mit einem Volk voller Widersprüche: Säkulare, Traditionsbewusste, Religiöse, Modern-Orthodoxe, Ultraorthodoxe, Siedler. Und alles dazwischen. Mit den Palästinensern Israels. Mit Juden, Muslimen, Christen, Drusen, Baha’i … Viele dieser Gruppen haben ihren eigenen Lebensstil, spezielle Überzeugungen und kollidierende Vorstellungen von den wichtigsten Bereichen gesellschaftlichen Zusammenlebens. Von Ehe und Scheidung, Wehrpflicht, Geschlechtertrennung, Bildung, Toleranz für Minderheiten, Einstellung zu den Palästinensern und zur Zwei-Staaten-Lösung. Und so viel mehr. Dieses Mosaik aus Widersprüchen hält nur mit Kompromissen. Und einer Führung, die das Volk der Israelis mehr oder weniger zusammenbringt. Ansonsten kommt es zu gefährlichen Rissen. Wenn ich heute auf Israel blicke, sehe ich vor allem ein Land, das sich von innen zerreißt. Menschen, die mit ihren Wurzeln um sich schlagen, als seien sie Waffen.”

“Intellectual life on American campuses has, over the course of the past half century, been fundamentally reshaped by the ascendancy of the “identity synthesis.” Inspired by postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory, a new generation of scholars succeeded in welding a diverse set of influences into one coherent ideology. Despite the real variation within and between different academic departments, this synthesis is characterized by a widespread adherence to seven fundamental propositions: a deep skepticism about objective truth inspired by Michel Foucault; the use of a form of discourse analysis for explicitly political ends inspired by Edward Said; an embrace of essentialist categories of identity inspired by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; a proud pessimism about the state of Western societies as well as a preference for public policies that explicitly make how someone is treated depend on the group to which they belong, both inspired by Derrick Bell; and an embrace of an intersectional logic for political activism as well as a deep-seated skepticism about the ability of members of different identity groups to understand each other, both associated with Kimberlé Crenshaw.”

“...but I'm also talking about the colonizing of truth, the redesigning of the fabric of reality. I am talking about the imposition of a way of classifying, measuring, and quantifying the world, including everything from time, to temperature, to distance, to weight. All of these things became calculated and bounded by frameworks that were not only European but often peculiarly English ways of understanding reality. Today's activism responds to the world on these terms, operating on terrain already mapped out by white supremacy, Eurocentric logic, and colonialism. This would be less worrying if it was clearly identified, would not pose so grave a danger if there was awareness that the terms of engagement operate within a framework that we need to dissolve. However, that acknowledgement appears to be entirely absent, and we congratulate ourselves on 'speaking truth to power' (often, depressingly, via what we know call 'platform capitalism').”

“I think that the Democratic Party has been ill served by identity politics. I think that ironically evangelicals have now bought into the same mistake. They have discovered allies in the white supremacist movement. I think this is a heavy price to pay and will in the end accelerate the departure from religion by young people.”

“What the left ends up missing is that politics have always been at the heart of American culture; it's been a white identity that's been rendered invisible and neutral because it's seen as objective and universal. As a result, we don't pay attention to how whiteness is one among many racial identities, and that identity politics have been here since the get-go.”

“Writers in the nineteenth century - people like George Eliot and Flaubert - were accustomed to addressing particular communities with which they shared not only linguistic meanings but also an experience and history. Those communities have progressively split in the twentieth century, and grown more heterogeneous, and writers emerging from minority communities have found themselves addressing audiences closer to their experience and history - a phenomenon derided by conservative white men as identity politics and multiculturalism in the arts.”

“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.”

“Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?”

“In the context of the great debates about identity politics - are you gay or straight, nationalist or republican, British or English and so on - I would ask, "Do you ride a bike?" I love everything about the machine - the sensation of the tyres on the road, the mobility - and I love the fact that you have this intimate relationship with the elements, and the landscape.”