This isn't going to become an election blog ... totally. ;-) Mind you, it's a pretty big deal on my mind no, so I can't guarantee there won't be many more posts on it as we move into the spring and summer.
I was thinking, though, about an aspect of race some people have been commenting on recently: Obama's lack of support from Hispanic voters generally, and his especial challenges in areas (like some parts of Texas) where there has been "black-brown" tension. It seems to me that this is yet another symptom of the kind of divisive politics we've all played into, especially when we do politics based on identity. This isn't a criticism of any particular candidate, but of identity politics in general, whether gender or race or religion or political party or anything else.
Identity politics does two things that I really hate. First, it makes this assumption that people who share one of these characteristics think monolithically; personally, I see this all the time in the assumption that Black = Democrat or Black = affirmative action supporter. (As you might infer, neither of those equations applies to me.) Second, it works on the basis of assuming that people who have one characteristic don't share interests with people of another characteristic, except perhaps in certain cases of strategic alliances. So suddenly, we're encouraged to not care for others and to expect that they don't care for us and what matters to us.
This has no benefit to the general public ... but a lot of benefit for those who would like to set themselves us as supposed leaders of these identity groups. It makes a complex populace manageable, simple, easy to manipulate; we are stripped of most of the other things that make us up as people, and reduced to single-issue ciphers. And ultimately, it reduces our corporate power - it's a very clear example of divide and conquer. We would be much more of a challenge to them if we started recognizing what connects us and working in partnership with one another. What might we accomplish then?
Well, I'm a black, Hispanic, female, evangelical Christian, single, straight, young, middle-class, independent citizen. Where are you going to put me, pundits?
¡Sí, Se Puede!
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2 comments:
This is not an indictment against you, but I was wondering why you capitalize Hispanic and not Black. From my perspective, Black Americans, capitalize it because that is how in some cases they defined themselves as a people especially if they are not able to trace their roots to a specific part of Africa in which case they could be more specific about the cultural group (eg. Yoruba). I just think that in the unique case of Black people who came here through slavery (as opposed to immigration) it is a unique circumstance. It sometimes is a subtle way to reduce how one may define oneself culturally (I am not saying you are). I totally understand that you are not just one cultural but they all deserve a capital letter. It not just grammatics; its how many people of African descent define themselves. It can sometimes hurt people who define themselves in that way to see this.
I don't know ... I just never really have capitalized "black" as an ethnic descriptor. There's probably a way in which it's a deliberate choice by my subconscious, because I reject the idea of people of African descent as culturally or socially homogeneous, and "Black" has always been defined in my mind by people who felt such a strong need not only to (re)create and ethno-cultural identity that they felt they had lost, but also to make me have to abide by that same identity myself. (I also always get irked by the fact that Black doesn't seem to include Americans who came from Africa by choice instead of force, which just seems stupid.)
I do tend to capitalize Asian-American, European-American, and African-American, because those are more place-of-origin definitions (albeit with some cultural assumptions as well). They don't automatically imply that everyone thinks or behaves the same way, and there's a recognition of the fact that within each of those categories there are further distinctions and nuances of identity. For me, Hispanic is a similar term (rather that South/Central/Latin American-American), and there are definite distinctions, even if not always recognized by outsiders, between groups from specific regions and countries.
That doesn't seem to be recognized the same way for "Black"; it seems to come with the connotation that all descendants of African slaves come with the same cultural content, opinions, interests, etc. And since I often disagree or don't match up with those expected characteristics, I get especially irritated by the generalization without an understanding that blacks in America have distinctions, too.
That was the long answer, I guess ... the short one is that the connotations of Blackness tick me off, so I don't capitalize it. But African-American is sometimes just too darn long to type out. :)
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