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In public discourse in Social Media and news, there’s a renewed focus and extreme emotion involving Identity. Witness the NFL Kneeling Protests, Black Lives Matter, and White Nationalism focusing on racial issues. Witness the Women’s March and Me Too movement focusing on Women’s Rights. Witness the “Fight For 15” to increase minimum wage focusing on socioeconomic status.
Popular Identitarian movements in America are mostly focused on race, sex, and socioeconomic status, but they also exist with respect to sexual orientation, nation, religion, and ideology. As members of various factions become more deeply entrenched in their positions, they vow a spirited defense of their cause while acting to vanquish the other side, who they may view as evil. Debates don’t get very far without the labels of “racist”, “sexist”, or “Nazi” being hurled.
In all this conflict, the individual gets lost and abstracted away into a class. However, it will be a return of focus onto the individual that will present the greatest challenge to prejudice against individuals based on their group affiliation. I will consider here specific cases of racism, sexism, and other “isms” and see how they are solved through the…
