Group Identity Theory

= this is the overall concept I have chosen to use to identity and discuss the new typeof identity politics that expressed itself in the events at Evergreen State College in 2017, and which reduce people to their group identity within a intersectional framework

Characteristics

• see our article on Applied Postmodernism

Core Tenets of Anti-Racist Scholarship-Activism

by Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay:

• Racism exists today in both traditional and modern forms

• Racism is an institutionalized, multilayered, multilevel system that distributes unequal power and resources between white people and people of color, as socially identified, and disproportionately benefits whites.

• All members of society are socialized to participate in the system of racism, albeit in varied social locations.

• All white people benefit from racism regardless of intentions.

• No-one chose to be socialized into racism so no-one is bad, but no-one is neutral.

• To not act against racism is to support racism.

• Racism must be continually identified, analyzed and challenged. No-one is ever done.

• The question is not Did racism take place? but rather How did racism manifest in that situation?

• The racial status quo is comfortable for most whites. Therefore, anything that maintains white comfort is suspect.

• The racially oppressed have a more intimate insight via experiential knowledge into the system of race than their racial oppressors. However, white professors will be seen as having more legitimacy, thus positionality must be intentionally engaged.

• Resistance is a predictable reaction to anti-racist education and must be explicitly and strategically addressed.

These are the core tenets developed by scholar-activists Heather Bruce, Robin DiAngelo, Gyda Swaney (Salish) and Amie Thurber at the National Race and Pedagogy Conference at Puget Sound University." (https://areomagazine.com/2019/01/20/the-influence-of-anti-racist-scholarship-activism-on-evergreen-college/)

The Three Key Ideas

"Among the progenitors of these ideas, Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (and the academic paper that preceded it by seven years) is a particularly influential text within the discourse analysis branch of critical race theory. Set alongside Peggy MacIntosh’s White Privilege and Barbara Applebaum’s White Complicity, it closes the door on any possibility of arguing against a critical conception of society, as outlined in the confessional creed above. These ideas form a web of theory that understands society as being constructed by a pervasive racial bias, which needs to be continuously uncovered and addressed.

Together, these three ideas shut out the possibility of engaging this theoretical web in good faith unless one agrees with it. MacIntosh’s conception of privilege contains the idea that it always seeks to maintain and justify itself. Applebaum’s notion of complicity insists that remaining silent or stepping away when confronted with what these theoretical priests call racism is to be complicit in racism." (https://areomagazine.com/2019/01/20/the-influence-of-anti-racist-scholarship-activism-on-evergreen-college/)