The more people make a big deal of their identities, the more oppressed they will be based on those identities, and the more oppressed they will feel based on those identities. As I’ve discussed here, for instance, the evidence suggests there’s been an increase in anti-black racism (as well as anti-white racism) as a direct result of many black and liberal white “intellectuals” turning their backs on the Civil-Rights-Era ideal of de-emphasizing difference and focusing on underlying humanity (which had been making tons of progress) and, instead, starting to stress those very things that make us different from others. To avoid oppression based on identity groups, we have to start adopting a unifying American identity once again and start doing everything we can to integrate rather than segregate.
Take the example of Italian-Americans. A hundred or even 75 years ago, Italian-Americans were a distinct identity group. They held low-wage jobs, lived in dangerous, dirty Italian ghetto neighborhoods and were widely vilified and discriminated against as a bunch of criminal, vulgar, uncouth, uneducated, dumb thugs (the same stereotypes that are believed with reference to African-Americans today). Today, most Italian-Americans are completely integrated into the general population, and all the negative stereotypes associated with them have, as a result, fallen by the wayside. This happened not because Italian-Americans started stressing their distinctive Italian heritage or anything like that, but quite the opposite. It happened because Italian-Americans started living in the same neighborhoods as everyone else, working in the same workplaces, marrying into non-Italian families, attending churches attended by all kinds of other people, etc. This kind of integration — working your way up, economically and socially — is the surest path to ending any sort of oppression a group experiences. But identity politics today are taking us in the exact opposite direction, leading to greater segregation of every sort. I just described on Medium, for instance, the sad story of a family that is taking a mixed-race child and planning to educate him in a way that will segregate him from others and make him identity with blacks and Africa rather than with Americans of every race and origin. This kind of thing isn’t doing black Americans any favors. It’s limiting their opportunities.
As for your second question of “what form of politics isn’t a grab for power?” remember that the article of mine that you responded to deals specifically with the vision of society presupposed by identity politics, which is of society as a feeding trough, in which the goal is to divert and slurp up as much slop as you possibly can as quickly as possible before some other group gets it. There are other visions of society that are possible. We can see ourselves as all working together to create the best possible nation for all of us. Many of the Scandinavian nations have been very successful in this regard, for instance. The point is that if we see ourselves primarily and fundamentally as African-Americans or Causasian-Americans or whatever, then we’re going to be looking at every policy and practice from the standpoint of whether it advantages or disadvantages that particular group, whereas if we see ourselves primarily and fundamentally as Americans, we’re going to be thinking in a more broad-minded fashion, wondering whether various proposed and existing laws and policies are humane, productive, sensible, etc. There’s a big difference in these kinds of worldviews.
