Episode 347: Same Shit, Different Dogma
on February 6, 2017
and modified on July 6, 2018.
This joke might be a little bit “inside baseball,” but if you like to talk and read politics, especially on social media (and I bet you do), it might ring familiar.
I kind of agree though.
https://twitter.com/PersianRose1/status/828812954795651072
That’s a shitty joke and your shit for posting the link.
The the sparkly unified fart cloud of the people (SUFCoP?) ain’t wrong.
Perhaps, he’s directing the message to the wrong group.
Maybe. But since groups are a type of identity, the fart can’t direct a message to the appropriate group. That would be identity politics. No it’s better to yell messages randomly, independent of the person or the situation. That’s far less distracting.
I look forward to see how this new force for good saves the world. Perhaps it will tell a starving refugee about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, or maybe lecture a 3 year old on the mathematical flaw of applying string theory’s 10 dimensional M-space to traditional Newtional gravitation. Truly the world will be a better place now that all issues and people are treated completely equally.
At whom, exactly, would you direct the message that identity politics are a distraction?
I haven’t noticed any group that would profit from it more than feminism, which I think Little Sappho is meant to represent.
Well the argument here is that Trump is a master of distracting people with identity politics such as the “Muslim Ban”. The travel ban really doesn’t stop terrorism but it does give an appearance of doing something as well as distracting from the more negative things being done. Nerdwriter had a good video on how Trump uses misdirection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvvAQxxo_0
Now I kind of disagree with Rebecca here. While Trump does us identity politics as a distraction, it’s an intentional act, a tool he successfully uses. On the other hand the left tries to use identity politics to unite people and fails miserably, in fact playing into the hands of those trying to change the topic.
The left used to the politics of unions and the new deal. The ones that fought for the poor. And now a large portion of the poor believe that the left loaths them because they happen to be white or heterosexual or male or Christian. And they aren’t 100% wrong in that belief.
Identity politics divides and distracts not unites and heals. The right knows this and uses it to their advantage. I feel like the left doesn’t understand this fact at all. You can’t bring people together by dividing them up.
So, drowemos, I could not disagree more with what you’ve said here. The first part is apt. But “Identity politics divides and distracts not unites and heals” – in order for this to be true, I’d have to believe that NOT pointing out and fighting discrimination/oppression is somehow the better choice.
Your idea seems to be that talking about issues which affect specific groups based on their identity “divides and distracts.” But the division has already happened. 250 years of white identity politics in America have sowed all the division we can handle. The people are already divided up. White identity politics did that.
Unions and the New Deal and fighting for the poor SOUND like identity-nuetral things to fight for, BECAUSE THEY AFFECT WHITE PEOPLE. In fact, the only difference between what’s labeled “identity politics” and those other issues, is that the former doesn’t affect white people while the latter does. So it’s easy to fall into the trap of saying these issues are universal, and therefore more important.
In truth, workers’ rights and poverty affect people in different ways depending on their identity groups (for lack of a better term). And systemic discrimination is still a huge problem for many groups. It intersects with all the economic issues you mentioned. So it’s impossible to correctly address economic inequality without talking about, for example, racial inequality. And vice versa. They are interlinked and inseparable in this country.
What you’re essentially doing is telling people not to argue for their own rights and equality. This is nonconstructive and plays right into the hands of those you mentioned, using identity politics like Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment to divide and conquer.
I’d direct the message toward those who practice white identity politics. It turns out those who profit the most (quite literally) from identity politics are the very banks and corporations mentioned.
No! Wait. I have a better name for this new entity. It’s a vaporous cloud expelled by toxic shit that is metal collective multitudes of entities: It’s a Brain Fart… Or perhaps a Sparkly Brain Fart… And I guess since Rebecca has confirmed that the collective identifies as male I guess that would make it Mr. Sparkly Brain Fart the Fourth(“The Fourth” because it’s the fourth evolutionary stage Toxic Base->Shitlers->The Movement-> this form).
I like how the communist is the one rolling her eyes at “identity politics are a distraction”.
Yes cuz how dare she be annoyed with something like that. Just soooo terrible. Tell us why she shouldn’t oh savior of capitalism?
See, that’s why the Enlightening Ray is not used more often — you can never know if the result will be an improvement.
It’s definitely an improvement, just not as much as they would have liked.
Ironically this is where that White Knight would be handy.
I bet he’d just throw himself into the Brain Fart shouting about how inconsiderate it’s being.
But it’s a tricky situation.
On one hand is the assumption that assimilation is ideal -ie when being whatever letter of LGBTQA is so taken as normal that nobody cares who’s using what bathroom.
On the other is the useful distinction that certain groups need protecting. That’s not “identity politics” that’s “please stop murdering Trans women.”
I think that’s critical. Actual statistical events aren’t “identity politics” because they’re not about identity in that they aren’t driven by how a group sees itself, but how it relates to other groups.
But the language isn’t quite right. Or maybe the expectation of parsing that difference is incorrect.
Imo the cloud is right. Outside a given group identity politics is a distraction with sure potential to splinter alliances. The bigger the issue the more likely it is that a weak group will get poorly served, but at the same time capitalizing on disunity is one of the most basic and effective attack strategies there is.
Infighting needs to be preempted during times of peace, but when a crisis strikes either everyone chokes down their grudges and locks arms or ground is lost -and usually by those with the least to lose.
I was at the Portland, Oregon Women’s March. I saw some of that happen there.
Sigh, if only it were so simple…
I love the way your draw hands.
I agree. All Rebecca’s characters have such elegant hands.
Hands are very difficult to draw, but Rebecca always gets them right.
Gosh, thank you so much. It doesn’t come naturally. I use a lot of reference pictures and of course my own hands.
Permission to use a little nuance here, please.
I can definitely see where the people who say “Identity politics is a distraction” come from. Hell, if I were an evil billionaire bent on manipulating the economy to my benefit, I’d definitely stir up some racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and whatever other crap I could think of to distract everyone else from my plan. So, I’ll give them that.
Here’s the issue though: If you’re one of those groups being affected by it, that line comes across almost like you’re saying “your problems don’t exist” when based on experience, they quite clearly do!
OK, so all that out of the way, if the real argument is that economic justice should be the priority, I can see where that comes from. I mean, it’s definitely easier to fight racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and all that other crap when you’ve got money. And hell, some good old economic justice might even reduce the sting of being on the receiving end of all those -isms. Others might disagree with you those two points, but at least it’s now a debate on priorities, which could be constructive.
I won’t say what my opinion is on this here, because it would dilute my point
Dude. Money doesn’t make it better and it never will. You can be rich and still be hurt by those things and you saying that isn’t funny.
This is so incredibly untrue it hurts to type out a reply.
A person without money is a person without an essential tool. Money buys shelter. Allies. A voice. Money strengthens peripheral causes. Champions charity. Protects the ignored and dismissed.
In a literal sense all of those things are possible without money, but as far as the very important factor of efficiency matters money makes a small voice louder.
Yes that makes the sting of racism better. Sexism so much better. Sting of any prejudice better. Totes. Totes does. Except it doesn’t. You literally still get hit with it. It doesn’t make it dismissable. DX
It can make a bad situation somewhat good. Make you financially stable. But it doesn’t literally make prejudice easier to deal with. At all. DX
Originally, I said I wouldn’t state my opinion, because my point was that these two “sides” aren’t all that different, and very much *could* be a constructive discussion on priorities. It isn’t currently, but a slight shift in message from the sparkly cloud side is all it would take.
Now I’m stating my opinion: All I said is I can see how someone would think so, not that I agree with it. Being broke and marginalized is being broke and marginalized. Taking away broke still leaves you just as marginalized. It is, strictly speaking, an improvement, but doesn’t much feel like one.
As an example from my own experience: landing a high-paying tech job felt nice, but some part of me couldn’t shake the idea that it just meant I could make bigger donations to HRC/Lambda Legal. The Supreme Court decision on Obergfell, on the other hand was… well… it’s really hard to describe feeling like you’re considered human for the first time, isn’t it?