I attended a small protest at the SF EPA offices in support of the agency and against the funding cuts from the Trump administration. It's fair to say that everyone there was an environmentalist who cared deeply about EPA efforts to curb pollution and encourage green energy. It's stands to reason that the organizers would focus on the thing that united everyone in attendance, right? But, instead, they brought up Native American speakers who offered prayers and talked about how non-Native Americans could never experience the same connection with the land that they had. They brought up Latin Americans who similarly talked about their special exposure to environmental issues. They took what little cohesiveness the group had and fractured it by having to acknowledge people's individuality.
We then marched to the Federal building. But on the way, they had multiple stops to protest non-environmental issues. They stopped at a housing developer to protest the new housing they were building, just because it happened to be near an area that's currently low income. Never mind the studies that show that any new housing, even luxury, helps keep rents lower at all levels. And then they stopped to protest in front of an industry conference of some sort. I forget their specific grievance, but I remember distinctly feeling like it was naive and I didn't support it.
The whole experience left me with a particularly distasteful feeling. I went to support increased funding and regulation by the EPA and somehow got roped into supporting a ton of crap that I disagreed with. And if this was an isolated incident, I could write it off as being poorly organized, but I've been to a few of these leftist protests now and, with the exception of the march for science, none of them were able to stay on message. They were all sidetracked by focusing on what divides us into individuals as opposed to what united us all to come protest. We're all multi-faceted people, but I think the left needs to learn that when we protest, it's okay to focus on the single facet that unites everyone protesting rather than the many that divide us so that we can speak with a single, powerful voice with a clear and coherent message and not a multitude of easily ignorable voices, each with their own unique message.
I know when the right rails against "identity politics" this is not what they mean, but as a progressive, I feel that this sort of identity politics gets in the way of building a coalition large enough to make progress.
> I know when the right rails against "identity politics" this is not what they mean, but as a progressive, I feel that this sort of identity politics gets in the way of building a coalition large enough to make progress.
When stated motives are questionable, look at the outcomes and use those to infer what the true motives were.
The poorest people in this country are black and brown. The first people impacted by environmental disasters (and soon climate change) will be black and brown (Katrina, oil spills, [1]). That's why the people you decry as focusing too much on identity politics are at the forefront of pushing for universal healthcare, broader safety nets, and environmental regulations.
You're making my point, you can't control yourself!
Race and climate aren't naturally connected concepts. It's fair to conclude you use race and class in this way as a wedge to divide people and pit them against one another in order to batter your political enemies and increase your power.
If you want to be a Marxist, just be a Marxist and don't hide your beliefs.
But of course, this is my white male privilege speaking.