User:DavidBailey/Identitarianism

Not to be confused with Identity politics, which are influenced by age, religion, social class or caste, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, sex, gender identity, generation, occupation, race, political party affiliation, and many other social organizations..

Identitarianism is the belief that identity is derived mainly from one’s gender, sexuality, race or ethnic background, and that this identity should form the basis of the primary group with which one self-identifies. Often, other social identity outgroups are discounted or marginalized. Those who believe in identitarianism are referred to as identitarians.

Political movements

Identitarian views often lead to political movements which are often associated with populism, post-modernism, and anti-establishmentarianism.

Europe

See also: Identitarian movement

In Europe, the right-wing, nationalist Identitarian movement seeks to limit non-European immigration and improve living conditions for native Europeans.

In September 2018, Spiked Magazine spoke with journalist and social commentator Remi Adekoya about identitarians. He claims black identitarians who are promoting the racism-is-rife narrative, and who are portraying white people as deeply, even if unwittingly, racist, are making things worse for everyone.

Then there are those who really believe in the identitarian message. They genuinely think Western societies are oppressive and racist. These are usually racial minorities who grew up here in the West. Those of us who grew up, say, in Africa have seen what real oppression and marginalisation can look like. However, I understand that those who have grown up here don’t have that comparative frame of reference. They only compare Britain as is to what they imagine it should be, rather than to other countries. They might have been brought up to be suspicious of white people because of colonialism, slavery and other historical wrongs that happened to black people in the past. They might have been brought up hearing and reading a lot about historical wrongs and thus have an instinctive suspicion of white people. This makes them very susceptible to assumptions that white people simply don’t like black people and think they are inherently superior to black people. What we have been told about the past is a powerful shaper of how we interpret the present. This, of course, applies to all people, not just black people.

United States of America

Intersectionalist identitarians in the United States argue that white men as a group are unqualified to give opinions related to race, gender, and society, because of their abuses of minorities in the past. Others argue that straight men in academia or society cannot represent LGBT perspectives.

According to Christian Alejandro Gonzalez, identitarianism and intersectionality have been used to shut-down discussions, such as by white people about race, or men discussing women's rights.

White supremacist Richard B. Spencer has identified himself as an identitarian, and has said that "race is the foundation of identity".

See also

• Identity (social science)
• Identitarian movement
• Identity politics
• Ethnicism
• Ethnic nationalism
• Intersectionality
• Racism
• Sexism
• Tribalism

References

Category:Identity politics Category:Political terminology Category:Majority–minority relations Category:Critical theory Category:Sociology Category:Discrimination Category:Intersectionality Category:Words coined in the 2010s