Our queer community is steeped in “identity politics.” For years we’ve called ourselves “gay,” or simply gay, or, a little more inclusively, gay and lesbian. We are gay. The LGBT banner felt more inclusive, but we were just getting started. LGBTQ? LGBTQ+? LGBTQIA? Absolutely!
There are plenty of letters in the alphabet, and plenty of creative, community-minded thinkers who continue to hone our identity. As the famous Vulcan quote goes, “infinite variety in infinite combinations.” I’m all for it! After all, just like the exclamation mark, these letters are free.
We’ve been exploring these identities for years, and the term “identity politics” may be provocative to some people. The idea of people acting out certain identities is definitely provocative.
The standard definition is: Merriam-Websteris “the politics in which groups of people with particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identities tend to advance their own particular interests and concerns without regard for the interests and concerns of the larger political group.”
Or, looking back at the origins of the phrase, according to Wikipedia: 1977 Combahee River Collective This black, lesbian, feminist socialist message reads: “The focus on our own oppression is embodied in the notion of identity politics. We refuse to be put on a pedestal, queened, or walked ten steps behind. If we are recognized as human beings, as equal human beings, that is enough.”
“A high-level human being.” What a wonderful sentiment, and one that I’m sure any Vulcan would agree with.
Identity politics has been impossible to ignore over the past few weeks, especially with the wisecracking Matthew Yglesias Works from 2015“The truth is that almost all politics is about identity to some degree.”
The Kamala Harris presidential campaign has had fun fundraising with this idea, and in late July, they started a series of community Zoom calls with Black women. There were similar calls with Black men, rural Americans, “cat ladies,” South Asian women, and Grateful Dead fans. The Human Rights Campaign organized an LGBTQ call. I donated during the “White Men Supporting Harris” call. Why not the HRC call? Scheduling issues. And our Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg was on the “White Men” call! Like Harris, Pete and I can be two things at once: white and gay! Like Walt Whitman, we have diversity. Everyone does.
It was the WD4H call that seemed to really galvanize right-wing white men.
of Fox News Digital Headlines The article read, “Virtual rally of ‘white men supporting Harris’ gets slammed online: ‘Most Beta rally ever.'” According to the most common definition from Urban Dictionary, a “beta” is “a man who is totally nasty instead of acting like an alpha man.”
The more absurd part of the story didn’t include a “Beta” reference; instead, right-wing radio host Jason Lantz said, “Nothing is more ‘progressive’ than a self-hating white man with low self-esteem, a man bun and a gender studies degree thinking that by participating in this kind of condescending behavior, he might just make his first black female friend and date.”
Admittedly, I’m not a fan of the man bun. But have you seen Luntz? I looked him up. Holy shit. He’s critiquing fictional political figures for their cartoonish looks. This isn’t me nitpicking on looks. Rather, Luntz has attempted to portray himself with a ridiculously large (and seemingly dyed) pompadour that painfully accentuates Eddie Munster’s widow’s peak, topped with prominent eyebrows that are expertly sculpted and may well be entitled to their own political identity.
Some might say Lantz looks weird..
In a countercultural sense, “weird” has been a comfortable political identity for me. For those comfortable with “queer,” weird isn’t too far off. But as MAGA has become more and more queer, mainstream people have also started to condemn them for their weirdness. And the Trump camp doesn’t accept that. They see themselves as representing “normal” and want nothing to do with the collective weirdo flag. They flatly reject “weird” as a political identity.
For example, MAGA Minnesota Senate candidate Lois White isn’t at all happy about Harris’ running mate, Governor Tim Walz, denouncing right-wing weirdness.
“We are weirdos? You weirdos support a pride festival where grown men get urinated on in public and suck each other off.” White Post to XI have witnessed those acts, but never at a Pride festival.
Meanwhile, White is embroiled in a 2022 campaign finance complaint and is in Miami. Gold Rush Cabaret According to a strip club in Minnesota: Star Tribune“A sexy, fun and stimulating experience in a 15,000 square foot club with multiple stages, a full liquor bar, VIP areas, spacious common rooms and a VIP Whale Room,” the blurb reads. “As a fully nude strip club, our gorgeous female entertainers perform fully nude every night.” Sounds fun! But what exactly is a “VIP Whale Room”? Is nothing off-limits for these perverted straight weirdos?
In the same news cycle, Donald Trump’s understanding of identity politics reared its ugly head at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention on July 31. Stumbling The accusation that Harris is Indian, or black, or one first and the other, or vice versa, is embarrassing for a country whose greatest strength is its diversity. If you can’t see that, you are metaphorically color blind, and not in a good way.
Gender identity, a highly politicised issue on the right, has taken centre stage at the Olympics. The Washington Post On August 5th, a press conference about Olympic boxers Imane Kherif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan was covered in incredibly amusing fashion: the International Boxing Association was set to present evidence completely disproving that the boxers were women.
Rather than evidence, the meeting presented a Rudy Giuliani-level pandemonium that culminated in Khelif’s pro-Khelif teammates yelling at members of the expert panel, waving Algerian flags, and throwing reporters out of the room.
For context, the July 15 issue Popular Mechanics was referring to new research on our “Last Universal Common Ancestor” (LUCA), which examines the time of LUCA’s origins, but nothing is more important than pausing in the midst of this political season to remember that we are all, essentially, cousins, and we might as well welcome all other life on Earth to a family reunion.
Our planet, no matter how crowded it is, Pro-birthers Some people have opinions about the birth rate. On the one hand, some people say that as long as the population is sufficient, they are not worried about a decline in the birth rate. They are more worried than ever before. On the other hand, some people say that “Replaced” You are perceived by some as being too foreign, but when you consider your likely kinship with that bird above your head, or that cat on your woman’s lap, or the bacteria in your gut, humans cannot be that foreign to other people.
While one side indulges in identity politics and celebrates diversity, the other builds walls and uses “diversity” as an insult. No one is “other” to any meaningful degree. Surface differences are insignificant compared to how we treat each other, especially if we are trying to move away from tribalism.
The potential for greatness lies in the future, not the past, and can only be reached by embracing the other and accepting everyone as fellow human beings. To not acknowledge this, or worse, to resist it, is, in a word, strange.
Will O’Brian is a former Metro Weekly Editor in Chief. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband. Find her online here. Learn more.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
