Identity Politics
A DEFINITION:
identity politics: An organizing principle based around a group’s lived experience and their collective freedom.
CONTEXT & HISTORY:
Identity Politics, while used by some as a dismissal of a particular stance or perspective, is an understanding that to dismantle systems of oppression one must acknowledge the harms that are perpetrated against people based on their identity. The Combahee River Collective, an organization of Black lesbian feminists who began meeting in the 1970s, created this concept and publicized it in the pivotal work, The Combahee River Collective Statement.
MEDIA LINKS:
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective interview on Democracy Now! (4-minute video)
Edmonds Neighborhood Action Coalition 