The Worm Turns - Slowly - on Identity Politics

by Emmett Hogan

Those who are walled up in the land of academia harbor little hope that identity politics will go out of fashion there soon. Liberal professors swear by identity politics, as do administrators; and they will continue to do so for a long time to come.

But in Chicago, two recent events have underscored the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of identity politics. The widespread public indignation that followed each event bolsters the contention that average people, of any race, are eminently more sensible than their ivory tower 'betters'.

The first event occurred in the opulent Palmer House Hilton last October. Alderman Dorothy Tillman, who represents the predominantly black third ward, was hosting a political reception at the hotel. She asked the management to provide her reception with more black waiters. The hotel then removed two white workers, Michael Otte and Ahmet Gundogdu, replacing them with waitstaff of the appropriate hue. Mssrs. Otte and Gundogdu, understandably incensed, are now suing the hotel for $100,000, alleging racial discrimination. Ms. Tillman claims that she did not ask for the removal of any white waiters - just that more blacks be assigned to her receptions in the first place. She is not named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

The second incident is more recent. Alderman Thomas Murphy, whose  eighteenth ward is home to 47,000 blacks, felt it his duty to represent the interests of his black constituents. To this end, he sought membership in the City Council's black caucus. Trouble is, Mr. Murphy is as white as the driven snow, and speaks with a robust Chicago Irish accent. The members of the black caucus have blocked his attempts to join their group. Although caucus chairman Ed Smith contends that Mr. Murphy's application is still being reviewed, the other caucus members told their white counterpart in no uncertain terms that they would oppose his application. On Monday, July 16, 
Mr. Murphy announced that he was giving up his fight, stating "the only reason I was given [for why they opposed his membership] was that I'm not an African-American elected official ... I believe that the purpose of the caucus was to represent the interests of the black residents of the city. Apparently, they think otherwise."

Mr. Murphy, it should be noted, has been the target of identity politics before. During the city's last ward redistricting, the City Council was actively seeking to increase the number of black aldermen. Mr. Murphy's ward was broken up, and he had to run for office from a new ward that was overwhelmingly black. To the surprise of all, he actually won.

The supporters of identity politics in both cases have used some truly ludicrous arguments in their defense. Ms. Tillman (known by many to be a bit unstable) called her request a "gentleman's agreement", contending that it was similar to asking for "red carpets over blue carpets". She continued: "if you're going to come to a black establishment with your event and you'd like to have 
[white waiters], there's nothing wrong with that." In the case of Mr. Murphy, similar appeals to tokenism were made. Alderman Freddrenna Lyle of the sixth ward stated that, in a meeting with Mr. Murphy on Sunday, she told him that caucus membership depends "not on who you represented, but your status as an African-American."

The public reaction has been strongly against Ms. Tillman, the Palmer House, and the Council's black caucus. Some have publicly questioned whether Ms. Tillman - who is no stranger to controversy - can win reelection after this latest flap. And Mayor Richard M. Daley himself, the don of identity politics in a city where race defines political allegiance, has publicly disagreed with the decision of the black caucus. On either issue, letters and editorials in Chicago's two main papers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, run overwhelmingly against the proponents of identity politics. Television commentators, almost to a person, condemn the hypocritical behavior of Tillman, the Palmer House, and the black caucus. 

These events typify identity politics: what you are determines who you are. The supporters of identity politics all content that they have a right - nay, a duty - to practice the very things they decry about whites, in the name of addressing some historic bogeyman. No one seriously believes Ms. Tillman when she says it's okay for white people hosting an event to ask for more white waitstaff. And the City Council's black caucus would strenuously object if anyone were to set up a Council Polish caucus, or a Council Irish caucus, or a Council white caucus. And they would riot if these caucuses - what 
great injustice! - denied membership to blacks.

Because identity politics indiscriminately projects responsibility and victimization from the individual to the group, it follows that groups harm groups and should pay restitution to groups. This is the basis for the 'tit-for-tat' attitude of many on the Left. Hence the logic of affirmative action: since whites (as a group) have had it so good for so long, we'll develop a prejudice in favor of blacks (as a group), Hispanics (as a group), etc. The experiences of the 
individual, be it Alderman Murphy or a college applicant, are irrelevant, because remember - what you are determines who you are. The situation is similar with redistricting; since gerrymandering was used for so long to dilute the voting strength of minorities, it is proper now to use gerrymandering to bolster their strength. Hence the monstrosities known as Illinois' fourth congressional district and North Carolina's twelfth congressional district (also known as the 'I-85 district'), designed to corral Latinos and blacks,  respectively, into a single, sprawling district. The implication, of course, is that blacks and Latinos all engage in groupthink, and so, therefore, only a person of the appropriate ethnic group can accurately represent them. And lastly, there is that mother of all crazy ideas spawned by identity politics: slavery reparations. Those in favor of reparations contend that today's whites (group A) owe today's blacks (group B) for what some of yesterday's whites (group 
C) did to yesterday's blacks (group D). In sum: A pays B because some members of C wronged the members of D. How well or poorly a person fares today is irrelevant; group accountability is all that matters. Indeed, whether or not a person's family was even in the country at the time of slavery matters not to reparations crusaders. Identity politics always subsumes individual identity into group identity.

For some inscrutable reason, this sort of thinking is widespread on college campuses today, especially at Dartmouth. Consider two examples from last spring term. In her bromide against Greeks at a faculty meeting (yes, the meeting at which the faculty loudly condemned the Greek system), Professor Susan Ackerman of the religion department decried the rampant "othering" that occurs because of the Greek system. Ackerman contends that the Greek system builds insurmountable walls between students, defining them  automatically as 'Greek' and 'non-Greek'. She also contends that this supports other walls, such as those between sexes, races, and so on. Her psychobabble about "othering" illustrates that, in her mind, interaction occurs only between groups. It is impossible for her to consider that Greeks and non-Greeks, whites and minorities, or men and women can interact with each other as individuals, and not as ambassadors from whatever groups she and her ilk think they represent. All this insight she gains from the cozy confines of her 
office - goodness knows it doesn't come from personal experiences with the Greek system.

A similar situation arose with the clandestine student campaign to remove single-sex houses from campus. The cowardly anonymity of those students prevented those of us who disagreed from engaging in an honest debate with them, but their argument was nonetheless clear. Men, as a group, should be forced to interact with women, as a group, in their living spaces. The notion of individual men and individual women interacting as individuals alone is completely alien to this argument and its proponents. Men and women - 
especially Greek men and women - are solely defined by what they are. Personality doesn't matter.

The public response in Chicago to the Tillman and Murphy affairs has been encouraging. People here have an instinctively negative reaction to identity politics, as well they should. Although public outrage has yet to expand to affirmative action, racial gerrymandering, and the reparations argument, this development should not be far off, since these issues rely on the same 
convoluted logic for their justification. The situation at Dartmouth and other colleges, however, seems less promising. But even in these last redoubts of social engineering, common sense should triumph over the perversion that is identity politics.