Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> <snip>
> > Examples abound, but Mr. Michaels correctly focuses on the fetishizing
> > of racial difference -— a tic shared among partisans of every
> > ideological persuasion -— as the key factor in the flight from a
> > class-based politics.
>
> Americans never had "a class-based politics" independent of white
> supremacy, so they couldn't have taken flight from what they didn't
> have.
Two points:
1. Anti-racist politics of the '60s was _not_ identity politics; identity politics came klater and were a sympton of the retreat of the Black and Women's liberation struggles, _not_ of the continuation of those struggles. It is endlessly confusing to label those struggles as grounded in identity concerns.
2. Yoshie's point is central. The only possible "class-based Dpolitics" are those centered around the struggles against racism and sexism WITHIN the working class.
"Identity politics" is an oxymoron. To repeat: "Identity Politics" reflected the ebbing of the liberation movements of 1955-75.
Carrol
P.S. I've learned a lot fro, reading Michaels over the years, though I've often, even usually, disagreed with him.