Star Spangled Banner

[Diane Monaco]

At 04:09 PM 6/4/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>At 10:28 AM 6/4/2002 -0700, joanna wrote:
>
>>I think if you're an oppressed nation/race etc. and you're supposed to 
>>follow the program and perform under some other official identity, it's a 
>>step forward to assert what you feel is your more genuine identity. But, 
>>I think it's a transitional step, not the final one.  The misfortune of 
>>identity politics is that it does make it the final step.
>
>
>I think it is more than that - identity politics is reactionary in the 
>truest sense of the term.  It is a response that shuns technological 
>superiority instead of adopting it, and thus substitutes material 
>resources with symbolic opiates.

You state that "...identity politics is reactionary in the truest 
sense."  So then black activists and feminists are not really radical in 
their politics at all but rather reactionary?  Are you saying that members 
of oppressed groups continue to be underrepresented and powerless because 
they shun technology?  And furthermore if they become proficient in the 
latest technology everything else will just fall into place?  Yeeeoow, now 
that sounds a bit reactionary!

Diane