A Question of Identity Politics

There are some skills essential to a long and moderately successful career at the chalkface and not the least among these is the ability to repress the instinctive but completely inappropriate response in the presence of a class.

For me, the ultimate test of this was a mixed-race pupil who, half in jest, would invariably respond to any criticism or rebuke with Ali G’s catchphrase, “Is it ‘cos I is black, Miss?”, to which I always wanted to reply, “No, Eddie, it’s ’cos you is an arsehole!”

Its been a few years, but I immediately thought of Eddie when I read about the way Harris supporters were reacting to the election result:

“There are so many people who are against Kamala because she’s a woman, because she’s black,” said Sanaa Canady, a Howard student. (Telegraph)

Of course it is, Sanaa; what other reason could there be? Sadly, Sanaa is not alone; social media posts have already appeared indignantly complaining about the women or minority ethnic voters who, as the authors see it, voted the ‘wrong way’, as if identity mattered more than the voter’s opinion on policy, integrity or suitability for office.

How future historians will regard the divisive consequences of identity politics and critical race theory is debatable - hopefully reason will eventually prevail - but we should certainly be lamenting that fact that, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, ‘No sooner had Martin Luther King knocked over the dragon of racial discrimination than activists boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Martin Luther King’.