Abstract
The final chapter answers objections to movements of identity politics as a whole, by distinguishing backward-looking identity politics from inclusive, forward-looking political projects. It also gives a brief critique of allyship in white feminism and concludes by discussing evidence-based practices of empathy and George Yancy’s theory of “tarrying”.
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- 1.
The objection to identity politics is widely shared. Beyond Lilla, both Sheri Berman and Jonathan Haidt hold similar positions. For instance, see Sheri Berman, “Why Identity Politics Benefits the Right more than the Left”, The Guardian, July 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/14/identity-politics-right-left-trump-racism. See also Jonathan Haidt, “Why Nationalism Beats Globalism”, The American Interest, Vol. 12, No.1, July 10, 2016. https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-globalism/
- 2.
I must here distinguish different types of liberalism. By “liberal”, Lilla means the politics on the left in the United States, and the democratic party. My earlier discussion of liberalism in the context of Martha Nussbaum referred to liberalism in the philosophical sense, as ideal political theorists of basic institutions, resting on the twin priorities of fairness and equality, in the vein of John Rawls. Both types of liberals have miscast BLM, but in different ways.
- 3.
Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (New York: Harper Collins, 2017) 59.
- 4.
Ibid., 90.
- 5.
Ibid., 91.
- 6.
Lilla, 59.
- 7.
Lilla, 59.
- 8.
Ibid., 129.
- 9.
Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream…”, 1963 March on Washington. https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
- 10.
Lilla, 65.
- 11.
Ibid., 128.
- 12.
Feminist theorists like Audre Lorde and María Lugones have been emphasizing the need and possibility to empathize across difference for decades. See Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, Freedom California: Crossing Press. 1984. See also María Lugones, Pilgrimages/peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
- 13.
I use the word ecstasis here not in the esoteric, Heidegerrian sense, but in a more every-day sense: merely an escape from narcissism, getting outside of oneself.
- 14.
Ibid., 130.
- 15.
Both Naomi Zack and Carol Anderson give extensive account of how the legal undermining of civil rights era legislation occurred. See Zack, White Privilege and Black Rights: The Injustice of US Police Racial Profiling and Homicide (NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016).
- 16.
Keeanga-Yahmatta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket, 2016), 5.
- 17.
Mills, Charles. “White Ignorance”, in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, eds. Shannon Sullivan, Nancy Tuana (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007) 11–38. Also, Black Rights, White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007).
- 18.
Lilla, 129.
- 19.
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. 3rd Ed. (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006) 79.
- 20.
Ibid., 80.
- 21.
Ibid., 41.
- 22.
Ibid., 80.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
See Sharon Doetsch-Kidder, Social Change and Intersectional Activism: The Spirit of Social Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
- 25.
Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, 1993.
- 26.
Eesha Pandit, “New Black–Brown Alliances in Houston could set a Pattern for Grassroots Progressive Change”, Salon, November 7, 2016. https://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/new-black-brown-alliances-in-houston-could-set-a-pattern-for-grassroots-progressive-change/
- 27.
Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007) 206.
- 28.
The Sydney Peace Prize for Activism, http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/
- 29.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “A Red Record” in On Lynching (Mineola: Dover, 2014), 29–116.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Feminist philosophers have written at length on white feminism’s exclusions. See, for instance, Mariana Ortega, “On Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color”, Hypatia, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2006. 56–75. Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005) Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (New York: Routledge) 1991. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (South End Press, 1984). Sarita Srivastava, “You’re calling me a racist? The Moral and Emotional Regulation of Antiracism and Feminism,” Signs the Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2005, Vol. 31, no. 1 (30, 44, 42–43).
- 32.
bell hooks, “Theory as Liberatory Practice”, in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (NY: Routledge, 1994).
- 33.
Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, 1993.
- 34.
Mariana Ortega, “On Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color”, Hypatia, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2006.
- 35.
Ibid., 61.
- 36.
Joan Didion, “On Self Respect”, Vogue, 1961.
- 37.
Naomi Zack, in White Privilege and Black Rights, notices this pattern.
- 38.
Allison Baily, “White Talk as a Barrier to Understanding Whiteness”, in George Yancy (ed.), White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-racism: How Does It Feel to Be a White Problem? (Lanham: Lexington, 2014) 37–57.
- 39.
George Yancy writes, “[Tarrying] is not about seeing how much guilt one can endure. This sounds like a species of white self-indulgence through a mode of masochism”. “Tarrying Together”, Educational Philosophy and Theory. Vol. 27, No.1, 26–35. 26.
- 40.
Silvia Bellezza, Neeru Paharia, and Anat Keinan. “Lack of Leisure: Busyness as the New Status Symbol”, Journal of Consumer Research, March 22, 2017.
- 41.
Yancy, “Tarrying Together”, 26.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Elliot Robert, Arthur C. Bohart, Jeanne Watson, and Leslie Greenberg, “Empathy”, Psychotherapy, Vol. 48(1), Mar, 2011. Special Issue: Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Relationships. pp. 43–49.
- 44.
Ibid., 48.
- 45.
Ibid., “Finally, because research has shown empathy to be inseparable from the other relational conditions, therapists should seek to offer empathy in the context of positive regard and genuineness. Empathy will not be effective unless if it is grounded in authentic caring for the client.” 49.
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Luttrell, J.C. (2019). Conclusion. In: White People and Black Lives Matter. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22489-9_5
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