On the Uses and Abuses of Identity Politics: The philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on the academy, the elite, and the future of politics

Friends:

Happy New Year! Wishing all a peaceful and blessed 2025. I'm happy to introduce you to philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, author of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else). In this Chronicle of Higher Education piece, journalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow interviews Philosophy professor Táíwò on identity politics.

The interview mentions where the phrase, "identity politics," originated. It emanates from a queer, Black feminist collective termed the "Combahee River Collective." I like how he defines identity politics, as being about...

"Who you are, where you stand in society, affects what you know, it affects what you want, it affects what you can do. Those are things worth self-consciously taking into account."

I refer you, as well, to an excellent Boston Review piece where Táíwò expresses his greatest concern about elites involving the (mis)use of identity politics:

"Identity politics is deployed by elites in the service of their own interests, rather than in the service of the vulnerable people they often claim to represent."

Both pieces ground their critique of identity politics in alignment with the intent behind the Combahee River Collective's use of the phrase. They viewed it as positive and desirable when marshaled in the context of coalitions to address common problems across difference. It was never about fostering group exclusivity where one identity group only works with others who look like, or identify with, them. 

In the Tuhus-Dubrow Chronicle interview, Táíwò suggests that virtuous political struggles focus on outcomes over process, meaning the attainment of concrete goals like, for example, forming a union. He then asks us to consider that "outcomes" can further include things like people in the struggle caring for each other more. I love this, however, it's confusing to me since I see caring, mutuality, and trustworthiness as optimally always both means and ends, instead of as either-or.

For Táíwò, elite capture is a kind of "system behavior," instead of a conspiracy. My only concern here is that any close reading of Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains, Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, or, for that matter, Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Promise—that crystalizes the decades-long, neoliberal agenda investigated by MacLean and Mayer—we must consider that atop system dynamics are nefarious plans to de-democratize, corporatize, and privatize our institutions and society. 

Eyes wide open, my friends. These are mutually inclusive, right? There is a system with system behaviors happening in it, including systemic racism, classism, etc. together with the expression of elite preferences that cut across race and class "differences" among the elite. However, real politics are also always at play among and by elites (as well as non-elites) in the political and policy making arenas.

The interview is confusing to me in places, but is overall helpful in thinking about things like tokenism and paternalism to avoid in politics. 

To conclude, I have read and highly recommend Táíwò's excellent book, Elite Capture. Great for the college classroom.

-Angela Valenzuela


On the Uses and Abuses of Identity Politics: The philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on the Academy, the elite, and the future of politics.



By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow | Chronicle of Higher Education
MAY 11, 2022

In the past few years, the Georgetown University philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò has gained notice for his lucid, subtle writing on such subjects as identity politics, climate change, reparations, and more. He first garnered broad attention with a 2020 essay for the British magazine The Philosopher that explored the limitations of “epistemic deference”: that is, calls “to ‘listen to the most affected’ or ‘centre the most marginalized.’”

In practice, Táíwò wrote, such calls often mean passing the mic to someone like him, because he is Black — even though he is also a tenure-track professor who grew up among the highly educated Nigerian diaspora. Amplifying certain voices on the basis of group membership, he argued, could serve as a merely cosmetic change, leaving structural problems unaddressed. What’s more, compulsory deference is no way to forge authentic relationships. “The same tactics of deference that insulate us from criticism,” he wrote, “also insulate us from connection and transformation.”

Now, building on that essay as well as a related piece in Boston Review, Táíwò has published a short book: Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else). Elite capture, he explains, is a concept that emerged from the study of developing countries. It initially referred to the tendency of the upper class to gain control over foreign aid; in other words, the rich get richer. But the concept has also come to encompass the ways that elites appropriate political projects and monopolize attention.

Elite capture, Táíwò says, is “not a conspiracy” but rather “a kind of system behavior.” Systems are a major theme of the book, a theme Táíwò develops by drawing on the philosophy of games. Another motif is his impatience with the symbolic gestures and efforts to avoid “complicity” that have come to take precedence, in his view, over actual political outcomes.

Elite Capture incorporates sociology, history, and folklore; Táíwò finds pertinent lessons in sources ranging from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to the Cape Verdean independence movement. For all his focus on the traps systems set for us, he holds out hope that we can recognize those traps and escape them. “Despite all our social programming, we can just do things,” he writes. “We can do the thing that will be punished; we can ignore the potential reward, choose the smaller prize.”

I spoke with Táíwò recently about deference politics, the gamification of contemporary life, and how he sees elite capture playing out in higher education.

Early in the book, you distinguish between the original intent of identity politics and the ways that it’s been distorted. You write that the term was popularized by the 1977 manifesto of the Combahee River Collective, a queer, Black, feminist, socialist organization, and “it was supposed to be about fostering solidarity and collaboration.”

So [the cofounder] Barbara Smith says that when the Combahee River Collective was theorizing around this idea of identity politics, what they were talking about was a kind of right to start somewhere. A right to take your own experiences seriously when you’re thinking about your agendas, your actions, your priorities. Also a sort of political origin, a starting point. You could start off by thinking about your priorities and still end up in coalition with other people, working in concert with other people, and collaborating. And they in fact did that.

But some people have takfen up identity politics in ways that are anti-coalitional in various ways. I don’t think the anti-coalitional impulse is very promising, politically speaking.

Perfect School Attendance Increase Absenteeism, Study Finds

This is worth reading, primarily because the findings on rewards for school attendance are counter-intuitive, accounting for their popularity. Despite this common practice, literally decades of research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation show how rewards can work adversely to deprive children of (what should be) the joy of learning which manifests as an internal motivation to do well in school.

Do take a look at the Robinson et al. (2018) study cited herein to look at the results of their large-scale research on "prospective" and "retrospective" rewards and how both kinds turned out to be "de-motivators" for the very outcomes for which such rewards were designed.

This is why high-stakes testing, focused on sorting and ranking students, is a major hindrance, as opposed to motivator, in education. It's ludicrous that such justifications were ever used for having such top-down systems that, if anything, have lessened the quality of the educational experience that teachers and children should be experiencing in our schools.

Not that eliminating these tests or these perverse reward systems are "the solution." We must eliminate curricular tracking, too, and give every child, regardless of gender, class, or race/ethnicity, access to a high-quality education (KnowledgeWorks, 2021).

Excellent recommendations appear below, too, including one that I would place at the very top, namely, a culturally relevant curriculum. When students' cultures, languages, and community-based identities are valued, this kind of affirmation helps children make sense of who they are while nurturing in them a deep sense of belonging in school that so many students lack.

If we understand all children (and ourselves) as having multiple and shifting identities, the prescription here is never about what is disparagingly termed, "identity politics," but rather to valorize the totality of children's selves, enriching the classroom experience through the kind of trust and positive sense-making that an inclusive and respectful approach engenders.

We are always more than we are told we are or who we understand ourselves to be.

It's meaningful relationships, equally meaningful curricula, and that stirring journey to the heart that motivate and inspire. 💗

Angela Valenzuela

References

KnowledgeWorks. (2021, Nov. 2) Let’s Face It: Tracking Is Intentional Systemic Inequity [Blog] https://knowledgeworks.org/resources/tracking-is-intentional-systemic-inequity/

Robinson, Carly and Robinson, Carly and Gallus, Jana and Lee, Monica and Rogers, Todd, The Demotivating Effect (and Unintended Message) of Awards (July 24, 2018). HKS Working Paper No. RWP18-020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3219502 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3219502

7 new ways to stem a rash of 

new school attendance problems

Educators, however, should not push for perfect attendance, as it can actually increase absenteeism.

By: Matt Zalaznick | April 4, 2022

The new causes of chronic absenteeism that arose during the COVID pandemic require a fresh set of solutions from educators. Transportation challenges, student health, school climate, mobility and poverty—long the leading causes of chronic absenteeism—also became much more severe during the pandemic.

At the same time districts were struggling to find enough bus drivers to bring kids to school, many families also stopped using public transportation for fear of contracting COVID. Prior to the pandemic, transportation was already the largest attendance hurdle, particularly for students who had to walk through high-crime areas or faced long commutes, according to a new report from Brown University’s EdResearch for Recovery team.

A decline in student engagement was another major challenge of the pandemic as a lack of internet access cut some families off completely and teachers struggled to transfer the in-person learning experience to the virtual classroom. The new research also details a number of less well-known reasons for absenteeism not directly caused by COVID. For instance, attendance is lower in schools where asthma rates are higher and the weather is colder. And children who experience more frequent conflicts with teachers and classmates are more likely to miss school, the report says.

Beyond the academic impacts of absenteeism, students who miss school regularly show less self-efficacy, eagerness to learn and social engagement. These impacts are more pronounced among low-performing and low-income students and English learners.

To reverse these trends, many district leaders are already working to improve the school climate. For instance, in high-crime areas, administrators can encourage students to walk to school in large groups that can be supervised by educators or other adults. Districts can also develop transportation plans that incorporate ride-share services and are targeted toward students experiencing homelessness or those living in foster care.

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More from DA: Why two educators say elevating student voice is key to building back better

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Here are several more attendance strategies detailed by EdResearch for Recovery:

1. Home visits. These give teachers, nurses and other educators insight into why children are absent and can also improve relationships with families.
2. Communicating with parents. Pairing detailed and timely information about a child’s absences with positive messages about their schools has been shown to improve attendance. Text messaging is a particularly effective way to connect with parents who are unaware of the extent of their children’s absences.
3. Breaking down ‘morning barriers.’ Schools can help families navigate the logistics of getting children to school by providing laundry services and coordinating ride-shares. Another step in this process is to have teachers or educators greet students when they arrive at school.
4. Access to health care. Schools see better attendance when they can provide dental care, vaccinations and other medical care to students. Improved ventilation will also help prevent medical conditions that cause absences.
5. Culturally relevant classrooms. Students are more engaged, and more likely to show up, when their schoolwork connects to their identities and life experiences. When it comes to special education, students are more likely to miss school when they are segregated into special needs classrooms.
6. Mentors make a difference. Students are more likely to come to school when they can look forward to working with a mentor or role model. Schools can develop mentorship programs in-house or work with community organizations.
7. Creat [sic] absence intervention teams. Districts can form teams that comprise educators, social workers and other community organizations to diagnose and respond holistically to the many causes of chronic absenteeism. The teams should use data to pinpoint a student’s academic and behavioral issues.

Educators, however, should not push for perfect attendance. In fact, research shows that rewarding perfect attendance in one month can lead to lower attendance the next.

The X in LatinX by Roberto Rodriguez

This piece by Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is about Latin@s shifting ethnic identity which is never static and always changing.  Even if such things are frequently harder for later generations, it is important for us to be mindful of the fact that that which we take for granted as "our identity" is also one that had itself undergone a shift—or various shifts in the span of time.

It's helpful to be flexible in life and also to grow.  Young people keep all of us on our toes.  And I'm thankful for that.

-Angela

The X in LatinX

June 7, 2017

 by Roberto Rodriguez

Twenty years ago, I wrote “The X in La Raza,” a political essay I referred to as an “anti-book.” I did so at a time when people were beginning to write Chicano or Chicana with an X as in Xicano or Xicana.

Though “The X in La Raza” was not a response to this development, rather, it was a response to myself, an essay I had written in 1981, titled “Who declared War on the Word Chicano?”
I responded to myself because I believed that people were misconstruing my work as some kind of nationalistic screed. If anything, in part it was to reaffirm a commonality with peoples from Central America who were fleeing their wars in the 1970s-1980s and who now lived in the United States. I believed then, and even now, that identity is about a spirit, as opposed to a name.
These ideas and terms mentioned above were controversial when they first became part of the lexicon and yet again, we find ourselves with a new controversial term on the block: XicanX or the broader term: LatinX.
To be sure, issues of identity are also always fluid. For some, however, identity is fixed and not subject to change or debate.
Now getting back to the topic of “The X in La Raza,” the “X” represented Indigeneity and it was generally associated with the Nahuatl language and is pronounced with an sh sound as in shicano or shicana. Many believe the word Chicano comes from Mexicano or Mexicana, pronounced as Me-shicano or Me-shicana as the ch sound does not naturally occur in the Spanish language. One theory is that the “Me” was dropped and Chicano and Chicana remained, though again, pronounced with the sh sound, and this purportedly was used to refer to peoples that lived somewhere in the Chichimeca territories, that is, somewhere in the north, perhaps in what is today referred to as the U.S. Southwest.

When did this change occur or when does the name Chicano or Chicana first appear in writing? Not sure, though a generation ago, while doing some map research on origins and migrations, I came upon the 1562 Gutierrez map that shows a city of Chicana generally near the mouth of the Colorado River. Chances are very likely that it indeed is an Indigenous pre-Colombian name. In popular barrio lore, Chicano and Chicana were reputedly used by pa-chucos and pa-chucas on the streets in the 1930s and 1940s, this, long before it was incorporated or borrowed by activist youth in what came to be known as the Chicano/Chicana Movement of the 1960s-1970s.

Because the Spanish language is gender specific, women activists began to use the term Chicana/Chicano and then later Chicana/o and then even Chicanao.

Some replaced the vowel at the end with the “@” symbol, thus producing the term Chican@s or Latin@s with a few other variations. Through this symbol, these terms came to refer to both men and women.

But now, back to ChicanX and LatinX. This development has happened due to issues relating to the fluidity of gender — a recognition that there is not simply a male-female binary. The X at the end is an affirmation of that fluidity and refers to people of all genders.

Why is this controversial?  Some people say it is only controversial to the older generations. One reason people bring up is that an issue arises because two languages are being mixed. For example, if Latin rather than Latino or Latina, or Hispanic, as opposed to Hispano/a was used, would not the issue be resolved? Avoided would be more correct.

For me, the X at the end is clunky, but perhaps when language changes, it is always clunky, especially when two languages are involved. Though to be sure, it is a progressive linguistic development. Whether it catches on in venues beyond activist and academic circles, I’m not so sure. The reason is that while the idea is progressive, issues of pronunciation may inhibit its more popular usage. For instance, how does one pronounce LatinX? I’ve heard it both with English and Spanish inflections, though it is more commonly heard in English as Latin-X.

For many whose ears grate when Latin or Hispanic are used to refer to people of Mexican or Central American origin — due to the perceived denial of Indigeneity —  Latin-X doesn’t cut it. Perhaps Chican-X passes muster, but then you get to words such as companerxs or amigxs? How do you pronounce these?

Perhaps what is written doesn’t have to correspond to what is spoken.

Perhaps there is one more issue here. For instance, as someone who indeed is from the previous generation, I have long wondered why it also isn’t African AmericanX, American IndianX or AsianX?

Perhaps it’s just a matter of time.

Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is an associate professor in Mexican American studies at the University of Arizona.

On the Topic of Identity Politics by Dr. Nelson Flores

On the Topic of Identity Politics by Dr. Nelson Flores

White people across the political spectrum have similar views on identity politics in ways that reinforce white supremacy. It isn't surprising that white conservatives, often explicitly espousing white supremacist views, would have negative things to say about people of color bringing attention to racial oppression. Yet, white liberals often describe identity politics in similar terms to white conservatives, arguing that they are divisive and distract from the ultimate goal of creating a colorblind society. And not to let the white radicals off the hook, a common critique of identity politics in these circles is that they distract from efforts to unite the working class. All of these perspectives are reinforced by some establishment people of color who are primarily interested in changing the color of elites while ignoring the need for broader structural change.
But identity politics have been integral to social change in the United States through challenging racial oppression produced by all sides of the political spectrum. Identity politics unmasked the injustices of Jim Crow laws, the xenophobia of English-Only policies and more recently the racism of mass incarceration. Identity politics have also pointed to the ways that colorblind discourse prominent in many liberal circles serves as a tool for the continued maintenance of white supremacy. And identity politics have also pointed to the ways that a purely social class analysis will never get to the root of the inequities of US society, which has white supremacy at the core of its institutions.
So identity politics is not the problem. White supremacy is the problem. That said, neoliberal identity politics that seeks inclusion within white supremacist institutions is not the solution. Instead, we need a radical transformation of our institutions in ways that dismantle the white supremacy that lie at their core. Radical identity politics must play a role in this transformation.


Dr. Nelson Flores is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  He has a Ph.D. in Urban Education from the CUNY Graduate Center. His research attempts to bridge theory and practice in ways that transform educational programming for language minoritized students.