Identity Politics

We can define Identity politics as a term that describes a political approach wherein people of a particular religion, race, social background, class or other identifying factor develop political agendas and organize based upon the interlocking systems of oppression that affect their lives and come from their various identities.

Two Sides of Identity Politics

The first side of Identity politics is recognizing and forming a bond towards those individuals around you whom you feel that you have a similarity with. This is helpful to the society as it gives a certain standard to every group and they can easily see those who are lacking something like people denied to their rights, jobs and other opportunities and where they can easily discuss and find a solution to. This approach also accelerates the process to unite the people in order to focus more on improving their society.

The other side of Identity politics is about having a “common enemy.” Individuals point at different people and forms a group that was inspire by their hatred to that certain person or group. This approach is really toxic as its original intention was not really to improve their group but to degrade someone else. This side is really destructive especially to places that have a wide diversity of people, culture and/or traditions as groups begin to form to a somewhat senseless reason.

Conclusion

Identity politics in itself is not bad and is really a helpful way to unite people to improve our society. But as everything else in this world, nothing is perfect. There will always be something or someone that will use it in a wrong way. It is up to us to use Identity politics to further improve our society and eventually overcome global problems that we are facing.