Mistaken Identity
Mass Movements and Racial Ideology
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A powerful challenge to the way we understand the politics of race and the history of anti-racist struggle
Whether class or race is the more important factor in modern politics is a question right at the heart of recent history’s most contentious debates. Among groups who should readily find common ground, there is little agreement. To escape this deadlock, Asad Haider turns to the rich legacies of the black freedom struggle. Drawing on the words and deeds of black revolutionary theorists, he argues that identity politics is not synonymous with anti-racism, but instead amounts to the neutralization of its movements. It marks a retreat from the crucial passage of identity to solidarity, and from individual recognition to the collective struggle against an oppressive social structure.
Weaving together autobiographical reflection, historical analysis, theoretical exegesis, and protest reportage, Mistaken Identity is a passionate call for a new practice of politics beyond colorblind chauvinism and “the ideology of race.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Haider, an editor at Viewpoint magazine, constructs a comprehensive and critical dissection of identity politics in his hard-hitting debut. Beginning with "black revolutionary theory" which he attributes to Malcolm X and Huey Newton Haider explores different social movements' attempts to imagine and actualize an anticapitalist and antiracist emancipatory politics. Drawing on prominent thinkers such as Stuart Hall, Amiri Baraka, Wendy Brown, and the Combahee River Collective and his firsthand experience as an activist and Pakistani American who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, Haider asserts that the anti Iraq war and Occupy movements failed to take account of the needs of marginalized people when formulating their goals and demands. Haider also asserts that traditional identity politics is more focused on gaining recognition for individuals than collective work toward broader social change and persuasively argues that society must move beyond identity politics separate marginalized groups demanding inclusion in existing systems to a politics of universality all seeking emancipation, justice, and inclusion for all. This book is an important contribution to discourses on American politics, race, and social movements.
