The original meaning of “identity politics” (with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2019

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an associate professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University and the author of multiple books, including most recently How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which traces the origins of the term “identity politics” back to its very first use. “Since 1977,” she writes, “that term has been used, abused, and reconfigured into something foreign to its creators.” Taylor’s intellectual history is driven by more than curiosity: it’s part of a larger vision that views racism and our contemporary economic system as inextricably linked. This is a conversation full of tough questions. What constitutes identity politics? When is it inclusive, and when is it exclusive? Is racism a function of capitalism or is it constant across economic systems? How did Barack Obama’s presidency lead to Donald Trump’s? What can stop future Democrats from running into the very same institutional strongholds that plagued Obama? Book recommendations: Black Reconstruction by W.E.B DuBois Selected poems of John Wieners Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis ******************************************************* Want to contact the show? Reach out at [email protected] News comes at you fast. Join us at the end of your day to understand it. Subscribe to Today, Explained: http://bit.ly/todayexplained Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:54.0	I don't think that there's any coincidence that Trump's kind of maniacal racism and hatred of the Muslims, Mexicans, and the blacks.
1:07.0	That that happens while there is a simultaneous looting of resources from the bottom of society to the top.
1:21.0	Hello, I'm Noah Clanchon, the Box Media Podcast Network.
1:32.0	My guest today is Pianca Yimada Taylor, who's a professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, the author of From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation.
1:41.0	And most recently, how we get free, black feminism, and the combo he river collective.
1:46.0	And how we get free is a fascinating book for some of the things I'm obsessed with right now because Taylor is able to trace the term identity politics to its first usage, which is in this collective's manifesto.
1:55.0	And it means a very different thing, a more inclusive thing, has a very different political project associated with it than what we think of as identity politics now.
2:04.0	So as a piece of intellectual history, it's fascinating to me. And I was excited to chat with her about it.
2:09.0	We also talk about some of her broader ideas, leftist critique of the Obama administration, and quite a bit more.
2:14.0	My email, as always, is as a client show at Vox.com, again, as a client show at Vox.com.
2:19.0	Here is Kianca Yimada Taylor. Kianca Yimada Taylor, welcome to the podcast.
2:24.0	Thanks for having me, glad to be here.
2:26.0	So where did the term identity politics come from?
	...

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