Civil Rights in American History lecture notes part 4

The Combahee River Collective Statement declares: “This focusing on our own oppression embodied in the concept of identity politics.”

The Combahee River Collective Statement was written by a group of radical feminists in 1977.

At its foundation, identity politics holds that oppressed groups are morally superior groups in America.

Derrick Bell one of the founders of critical race theory, argued in 1991 that black people had made no progress in the United States since 1865.

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote: “Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen.”

Dr. Azerrad argues that the focus on group results by identity politics creates the paradoxical approach of requiring discrimination in order to eliminate it.

Identity politics asserts that in a world without discrimination, the various identity groups would succeed and fail at the same rate.

Source: "Civil Rights in American History" course from Hillsdale.edu.