POL 257 - Topics: Identity Politics in America (1)

Identity politics, a term coined in 1977 by the Combahee River Collective, has been the target of criticism from both the left and the right over the past several decades. This black feminist socialist group wrote in the 1970s that “We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” The phrase “identity politics” has come to encompass a wide range of activities, and today can help us understand the political choices citizens make - including why Black and white Americans diverge so strongly in their reactions to police violence, disagreements over policies like welfare and immigration, and the degree to which there is ethnic conflict both in the US and all over the world.

In this course, we will explore what an identity is, the conditions under which our identities become political, how those identities shape our political attitudes and behavior, and how all of this helps us make sense of the current political context. We’ll think about what it means to organize politics around identity in a democracy, and how we see the complex and far-reaching effects of social identities in politics today.
(Social Science)