If you are a white liberal who wants so say something about identity politics I suggest you begin with the white identity politics that will likely be expressed by your racist uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. If you have nothing to say about him then leave POC alone.
White identity politics has thwarted any efforts at racial justice that have emerged throughout US history. In contrast, the identity politics that has emerged in communities of color has been out of necessity for survival against the violence of white identity politics.
The United States was created by white identity politics, which justified the genocide of indigenous people and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade even as it talked about “liberty and justice” for white men.
The Reconstruction era after the Civil War was destroyed by the white identity politics of the KKK and its allies that led to the institutionalization of Jim Crow laws.
Any gains of the Civil Rights movement were made in opposition to and undermined by white identity politics like when Northern white people refused to accept any efforts to address the de facto segregation that had been created by decades of institutional racism in the North.
Any gains made by the election of the first black president have been destroyed by the white identity politics of a coalition of white people including white nationalists and the many other white people from the North and South and of all educational levels who voted for Trump.
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