Tag: Entity

According to Jardina’s analysis, about thirty-eight per cent of white people who highly value their white identity are at or below the mean level of racial resentment, while forty-four per cent of white people who say their racial identity is less important are at or above that level. We don’t have good public-opinion data going back in time to indicate that levels of white identity in the population have changed, or that now more people are identifying with their racial group than in the past. There were people—mainly people who were interested in racial prejudice and racial resentment, some of whom were actually my advisers—who looked to see if white identity mattered in the mid-nineteen-nineties and in the early two-thousands, and this is a period in time in which the country was really different. How much of a connection is there between strongly identifying with whiteness and racist attitudes? It’s certainly the case that there are some people who identify as white and who are also racist. One is that there are a lot of white people who are more racially prejudiced who do not identify as being white, and the converse is true. One reason that we haven’t talked a lot about whiteness in the past is because whites don’t have to confront their racial identity the way that people of color in the United States traditionally have. I think we have an image in our minds of who this person who scores high on white identity probably is, like, a man from the South in a working-class job, and that’s not actually true. It’s not, “I dislike Latino people.” It’s, “I don’t like the idea that the country that I envision, the country that I grew up in, the place that is defined by this Anglo-Saxon culture, is somehow threatened by this new group. Even though some people might feel some attachment to a European heritage that at one point wasn’t considered white, the Anglo-Protestant sense of whiteness has been broadly painted as a “European” heritage.

Progressives have some intellectual and moral work to do. What are cast as political challenges to liberals and the left are also philosophical problems. All politics is about identity in some way, since all of us think of ourselves as, well, something. To use an example I am especially familiar with: I’m a reasonably well-off white male liberal who grew up in a middle-class family in a working-class city in Massachusetts where Catholicism and trade unions were important parts of life. This limited tour of my political psyche is the sort of exercise all of us can engage in. This alone makes the war on identity a non-starter among progressives and Democrats. On the left, the word “intersectionality” has gained popularity as it deals with the cross-cutting effects of race, gender and class, and there is no doubt that progressive politics will, of necessity, be intersectional. But beyond buzz words, progressives must find a politics that links worker rights with civil rights, racial and gender justice with social justice more broadly. In his book “Modernity and Its Discontents,” Yale political scientist Steven B. Smith offered this in an essay on the philosopher Isaiah Berlin: “Identities are not just things we have, they define who we are. If I am only for myself, what am I?” Hillel was not a political consultant, but his balanced approach remains sound, electorally as well as morally.

WASHINGTON — Progressives have some intellectual and moral work to do. What are cast as political challenges to liberals and the left are also philosophical problems. It's a question joined most pointedly in arguments over "identity politics." All politics is about identity in some way, since all of us think of ourselves as, well, something. To use an example I am especially familiar with: I'm a reasonably well-off white male liberal who grew up in a middle-class family in a working-class city in Massachusetts where Catholicism and trade unions were important parts of life. This limited tour of my political psyche is the sort of exercise all of us can engage in. This alone makes the war on identity a non-starter among progressives and Democrats. On the left, the word "intersectionality" has gained popularity as it deals with the cross-cutting effects of race, gender and class, and there is no doubt that progressive politics will, of necessity, be intersectional. But beyond buzz words, progressives must find a politics that links worker rights with civil rights, racial and gender justice with social justice more broadly. In his book "Modernity and Its Discontents," Yale political scientist Steven B. Smith offered this in an essay on the philosopher Isaiah Berlin: "Identities are not just things we have, they define who we are.

The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee warned Wednesday against opining on “every tweet,” without mentioning President Trump or any Trump critic by name. “In today’s media environment when every thought can be published, it is obviously tempting to voice an opinion on every tweet or interview,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There will be one faction or the other that will cheer. But when every utterance is a criticism, it dilutes the effectiveness of all criticism.” “And maybe, just maybe, without so much attention, some of the nonsense just will fade away,” he added later. He also cited the progress Congress has made this year on passing defense spending before the start of the fiscal year. “There is a very good chance the military will be fully funded on time for the first time in a long time,” he said. But Thornberry also lamented the current political climate as detrimental to national security, warning against “fringe” elements. “I am distressed at what’s happening in both parties. "The centrifugal forces now are quite strong, here and elsewhere.” Those divisions, he added, are giving fuel to adversaries looking to exploit them. “And make no mistake, there are those outside our borders who are ready, willing, and more able than they have ever been before to fuel and exploit those forces to our detriment,” he said.