The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

A similar danger now confronts some critics of the identity trap. Its opponents are united by what they oppose, not by what they endorse. This creates a temptation to outsource their moral judgments to their opponents. Instead of militating for a positive vision of the future, these critics of the identity trap have started to rail against anything that somehow seems “woke.” In other words, they have become guilty of what, drawing on an idea by Emily Yoffe, I once called 180ism: “the tendency of many participants in public debate to hear what their perceived enemies have to say and immediately declare themselves diametrically opposed.

One way to make sure that white and Black Americans have similar levels of wealth would be for society to get a lot more equal, lifting poor Black people out of poverty. But another way to make sure that white and Black Americans have similar wealth would be for a small number of Black people to become extremely rich. Marxists like Reed are aware of the fact that the latter course of action would ask much less of the rich and powerful, allowing them to keep most of their wealth. This, they worry, makes it much more likely that societies will try to achieve equity through such comparatively cosmetic changes that don’t actually reduce overall inequality. And if America manages to create a few dozen Black billionaires while millions of Americans of all races continue to live in poverty, they conclude, precious little is gained for most people: “The disparitarian ideal is that blacks and other nonwhites should be represented on every rung on the ladder of economic hierarchy in rough proportion to their representation in the general population.” But “a society where making black and white people equal means making them equally subordinate to a . . . ruling class is not a more just society, just a differently unjust one.

While progressives might be able to censor ideas they dislike within left-leaning institutions or professions, a society that gets into the habit of censoring unpopular viewpoints would be just as likely to suppress their own points of view.

Intellectual life on American campuses has, over the course of the past half century, been fundamentally reshaped by the ascendancy of the “identity synthesis.” Inspired by postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory, a new generation of scholars succeeded in welding a diverse set of influences into one coherent ideology. Despite the real variation within and between different academic departments, this synthesis is characterized by a widespread adherence to seven fundamental propositions: a deep skepticism about objective truth inspired by Michel Foucault; the use of a form of discourse analysis for explicitly political ends inspired by Edward Said; an embrace of essentialist categories of identity inspired by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; a proud pessimism about the state of Western societies as well as a preference for public policies that explicitly make how someone is treated depend on the group to which they belong, both inspired by Derrick Bell; and an embrace of an intersectional logic for political activism as well as a deep-seated skepticism about the ability of members of different identity groups to understand each other, both associated with Kimberlé Crenshaw.

Lors d’un entretien, elle a souligné son admiration pour l’« usage politique de l’humour » dont les Afro-Américains avaient fait preuve de longue date dans leur combat contre l’oppression. Ce genre d’« autodérision vigoureuse », a-t-elle remarqué, manque souvent aujourd’hui aux « ayatollahs de l’identité à l’université »41.

Joe Biden et Kamala Harris ont répété à qui voulait l’entendre que l’équité raciale était au cœur de l’action de leur administration. Plaçant l’équité en opposition directe à l’égalité, Kamala Harris a ainsi proclamé : « Je suis fière de me tenir aux côtés du président Joe Biden pour faire de l’équité l’une des pierres angulaires de la vision de cette administration31. » Il n’est donc guère surprenant que Biden, dès son premier jour à la présidence, ait signé un décret qui oblige « le gouvernement fédéral à s’engager dans une approche globale en vue de la promotion de l’équité » par l’adoption d’un « programme ambitieux d’équité impliquant tout le gouvernement »32. Afin de promouvoir l’équité, les Démocrates promettent d’élaborer des politiques « conscientes de la race » et « sensibles à la race »33. En pratique, ce que signifie être « consciente de la race » pour une mesure est très variable. Parfois, cela consiste simplement à s’assurer qu’elle n’aura pas d’effet discriminant, comme une loi qui obligerait les motocyclistes à porter des casques et n’inclurait aucune exception pour les sikhs, tenus de porter leur turban pour raisons religieuses34. Mais, de plus en plus, ces mesures varient en fonction de la couleur de peau (ou de la composition ethnique de son lieu de résidence)35 du citoyen auquel elles s’appliquent.

And by portraying society as being full of bigots who pose a constant threat to members of every conceivable minority group, they encourage more and more people to feel adrift in a relentlessly hostile world.

Over the past five decades, a large African American middle class has come into existence. Today, the median Black American has a white-collar job, lives in a reasonably affluent suburb, and is doing significantly better than his

These political and psychological precepts often lead to an organizational upshot: rather than focusing on efforts to integrate society, progressives have increasingly militated for the creation of spaces and

In the late summer of 2020, Kila Posey asked the principal of Mary Lin Elementary School, in the wealthy suburbs of Atlanta, whether she could request a specific teacher for her seven-year-old daughter. “No worries,” the principal responded at first. “Just send me the teacher’s name.” But when Posey emailed her request, the principal kept suggesting that a different teacher would be a better fit. Eventually, Posey, who is Black, demanded to know why her daughter couldn’t have her first choice. “Well,” the principal admitted, “that’s not the Black class.” The story sounds depressingly familiar. It evokes the long and brutal history of segregation, conjuring up visions of white parents who are horrified at the prospect of their children having classmates who are Black. But there is a perverse twist: the principal, Sharyn Briscoe, is herself Black. As Posey told the Atlanta Black Star, she was left in “disbelief that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me—a Black woman. It’s segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can’t do it.