Attacking Sotomayor: Identity politics and hidden racial appeals

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By Rowan Wolf (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Rowan Wolf - Writer

The charge of "identity politics" has come up in relation to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. It has been an ugly attack with claims of Sotomayor's racism, belonging to the Hispanic version of the KKK, and that she is more concerned about issues of race than issues of law. She has even been labeled as "un-American." All of these are codes , and the real target is not Judge Sotomayor, it is to stimulate fear among a certain portion of the citizenry with the goal of moving them into the "Republican" camp. This is currently a camp whose leadership is apparently being battled out by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney.

The code words of "identity politics" are meant to indicate someone who is of a minority status - woman, person of color, homosexual, and sometimes not Christian. It means that the person or group places the interest of "their" group above the "common" good. It means that the person or group has an "agenda" that does a disservice to, or detracts from, what is "right" or "good."

What is interesting about the charges of "identity politics" are they almost always arise from the same people - namely white conservatives. It is parroted by others in the ordinary conversations and discussions. Once again, those speakers are almost invariable white.

Interestingly, we can follow this same generation of conceptual flow with such code phrases as "political correctness" and "reverse discrimination." It starts with a trumpeting and repetition on the far conservative right, is played repeatedly within the mainstream media, enters into "common" conversation, and comes almost invariably out of "white" mouths.

This pattern should raise eyebrows and questions, but it rarely does. First, if "identity politics" is confined to nondominant groups, the "common" good/interest/gain must be that of the dominant group. Second, if there is a pattern of commonality of these charges and concerns that are coming from the dominant group, would not their perspective also represent "identity politics?"

What we have watched and experienced over the last 40 years is a deliberate and repetitive strategy to gain and hold political power. It is a strategy that employs stimulating the fears of whites that they will be usurped, their privileges stripped away, they will be "overrun" by "others" who are out to "get" them. The strategy has been expanded to cover homosexuals, humanists, Muslims and women. It is a strategy that has been deliberately employed, honed, and largely successful. It has allowed a relatively small portion of the population to successfully frame almost every issue, and present an impression of a constant threat of the "divided" America ready to break out in a "Civil War" - and that terminology is also generated from the same sources to stimulate the messages being sent.

This particular strategy was popularized during the Nixon Administration and it was known as "The Southern Strategy." (1) This "strategy" was aimed at consolidating the whites in the south who had been Democrats, but were (supposedly) angered by the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.(1, 2) It was an ongoing attempt to motivate white voters to switch to and vote with the Republican Party. Over the years, the appeal expanded to include an activist Christian right with the party hammering on the issues of abortion and homosexuality. Alliances made to shape the power block of the Republican Party, and expanded by Ronald Reagan and those who followed him.

There are those who would argue that there was no such thing as the "Southern Strategy." However, in 2005 then Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman made a statement to the NAACP stating that the Southern Strategy was wrong (3):

"By the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out," Mehlman says in his prepared text. "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

One of the problems with the apology issued by Mehlman was that the Republican Party was not "exploiting racial tensions," but stimulating them. The mechanisms of the strategy were to increase a sense of threat from non-whites, and to create a sense of disenfranchisement among whites. This mechanism underlies the various formations of claims of "identity politics," "political correctness," and "reverse discrimination" among others.

However, there is much more going on here than even these rather blatant calls to white racial unification. Much more subtle, but no less racial, are calls to other "interests" that are predominantly shared by whites, but seem to be a broader appeal. These are appeals to class interests, community interests, and "national identity" interests.

Class interests are appeals such as: "They're taking our jobs," "They are a burden" (on our schools, our hospitals, and our social welfare system).

Community interests: "They are running the good people out"; "They are taking over".

National identity: "Pretty soon we'll all have to speak Spanish ;" "They are a threat to our community" (i.e. English Only movement); "Pretty soon whites will be a racial minority in the United States... "

National Security: "They are a threat to our national security" (crooks and criminals).

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Rowan Wolf is an activist and sociologist living in Oregon. She is the founder and principle author of Uncommon Thought Journal, and a Senior Editor for more...)

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