New Teacast - Lisa Sharon Harper

Hello. Just wanted to send quick Msg to Alice and Tryce Sanders. Its really refreshing to read two people on internet actually having difference of opinion without immediately turning to mortal enemies and tearing each other down,just because they don't agree 100%. Both make great thought provoking comments, and because of that the wider group and knuckle heads like myself can learn something. not just about the given subject but how to interact and have civil discourse. So thank you both.

Joe

Hi Tryce! Thanks for this thoughtful response. I think you make good points about identity politics, but also, I think it’s likely I’m spending more time exposed to the more radical and toxic side of things. I do believe heritage and identity are important factors, but that they serve better as illumination for identity than they do as foundation. I feel like at their worst they can be reductive of humanity to component parts rather than usefully allowing human flourishing. That said, it’s incredibly important to highlight when an identity is being used by oppressive forces for reasons of limiting that flourishing. Which I think is a lot of the fuel for the current movement - people rebellion against the unspoken or euphemised identities that were being imposed on them to define their status and taking ownership of those identities in order to explain and deconstruct power dynamics. I think it’s likely that there’s an optimal balance between acknowledging somebody’s formative elements, and allowing those elements to obscure the individual, but I can’t pretend to know what that optimal balance is. All I can do is say what I’ve said, which is that at the more extreme end what’s an interesting and useful idea seems to be being misused by people to stoke grievances, and manipulate power, in ways similar to the way that so many good human inventions are misused. Thanks again for the feedback, and for listening to the pod. I really appreciate it! Stay in touch!

Hello! Nice meeting you at the LA Podcast Festival. (didn't so much meet as said hi in the big hallway) Discovered you via the stand-up show there last year, glad to catch you long enough to tell you that I love your podcast. On that note- I particularly liked this episode! Many thoughts about this one, but I'll say that I would take issue with the criticism of "identity politics" in general, because the concept is flawed. The label argues for de-elevation of people who want to speak about their backgrounds- if their backgrounds are of a minority status. It is hard for people to campaign for gay rights if they are to avoid speaking about having a gay identity; the "I don't see color" thing, aside from being an absurd lie (even if you were literally colorblind you could still tell the difference between black and white), is an impediment to confronting or even acknowledging racial bias. If you think trans-people are being demonized by politicians and resent that women's reproductive rights are determined by so many men, it is hard to push back without discussing the issue. In the current American political context, the citing of "identity politics" is a bit of messenger-shooting. As if the people speaking about a problem are the real problem. These troublesome people with their "identities" should put their concerns on the backburner, because "normal" people have "real" issues to discuss. Furthermore, as an American, our most recent presidential election proves very well that you can run an entire campaign based on identity politics via negativa (ie. without explicitly stating your own identity), and the world of marketing and advertising operates by the same principle. You will not turn on the TV and see a commercial which talks about how great it is to be and older White guy and how your interests are the very best interests and mark you as superior. But when Viagra makes commercials they very much know who their target customers are, and so everything about the ads- how they look, how they sound, when they are broadcast, the actors in them, and probably even the fonts- are aimed at white men in such and such income bracket of such and such age who typically aspire to this and that. This is all to say that, essentially all politics are identity politics, and it isn't the stating of identity that makes them venal, it is the substance and aim of the rhetoric. Conversely, the status-quo or unstated identity is not neutral, it is just assumed without being stated (or without being thought about). American politics has a long history of pandering to not just white voters but outright racists by allowing them a wall of plausible deniability, as they are serviced through the glory hole of...but I digress. I understand that we've a generation or two of people who've grown up with the understanding that the key to enlightened understanding of their fellow human beings is to deny labels and to shed all identities, but I think this version of "tolerance" is somewhat incompatible with acceptance. You said during this episode that it seemed like the goal was to see each other as people, and start stripping away the external signifiers of identity, etc. I might agree in general, but I would put emphasis on the word "see", as well as the word "people". Colorblindness is not a real goal, unless maybe if you're a statue outside of a courthouse. Colorblindness is a kind of blindness; not being a bigot should be the goal, which is a little more complicated, and maybe asks more of people. Acknowledging where people are coming from (sometimes literally) is not the fracturing of a unified group, it is a step towards the people demanding to be included. At podfest last year I heard the joke you told about your grandmother and the gay couple, which you referenced this episode. You cite her as someone who maybe by today's standards said all of the wrong things but did all of the right things. I'll say this, she certainly was very aware of whom she was helping. ~~~ Well, this message is entirely too long, and I apologize. Also, I apologize for mentioning glory holes in the same message as your sainted grandmother (I don't know what the Jewish version of sainthood would be, but I hope you get my meaning). Also, I hope this wasn't too much of an upbraiding, and I don't mean to be patronizing or pedantic. There are a lot of aspects of a lot of issues when it comes to topics such as these, and I hope I haven't come across too poorly in sharing my thoughts. I would also note that I don't really hang out in radical spaces, so you may be seeing more troubling discourse than I do. I mostly hear complaints about ID politics from conservatives or single-issue voters on the left who want to jettison other issues to find common cause with Trump voters.