The Dig: Mistaking Identity Politics

Checking your privilege. Invisible knapsacks. Intersectionality. In his new book from Verso, Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump, Asad Haider questions the terms and concepts that underpin much liberal and left conversation about race and racism, exploring critiques advanced by the black radical tradition to mount a thoroughgoing demolition of what we now refer to as "identity politics" — something that had a quite different meaning when it was first coined by the black, radical lesbian feminists of the Combahee River Collective. This is not a book that dismisses racism and sexism. Quite to the contrary. Haider shows that we can only confront and defeat oppressions like racism and sexism if we recognize their relationship to the capitalist exploitation of the working class as a whole. The corollary is also true: capitalism can never be defeated without recognizing and fighting the various oppressions that help sustain it.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out We Built the Wall: How the US Keeps Out Asylum Seekers from Mexico, Central America and Beyond by Eileen Truax (versobooks.com/books/2606-we-built-the-wall) and Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx’s Lost Theory by Mike Davis (versobooks.com/books/2779-old-gods-new-enigmas).