Identity politics not about special treatment

Jonah Goldberg just doesn’t “get it.” Identity politics is not, as Mr. Goldberg asserts, about payback for past transgressions, nor about singling out certain groups for special treatment (“Goldberg: The problem with ‘social justice,’” Feb. 7). The groups Mr. Goldberg accuses of wanting more than their fair share of political power — like lesbians, gays, non-whites and women who allege rape — were all singled out long go, and not by their own doing. American society at large, including powerful institutions like law and government at all levels, has singled out these and other groups for discriminatory treatment since the beginning of the Republic. In other words, it’s the powerful, not the powerless, whoinvented the concept of identity politics for their own purposes.

Mr. Goldberg’s attempt to use intellectual prowess in deconstructing and ultimately dismissing the concept of “social justice” misses the mark entirely. In reality, social justice — and social injustice — can be understood deeply only through the lens of lived experience. Here’s an everyday example: an AfricanAmerican neighbor of ours describes what happens routinely whenever he walks down an aisle in our local supermarket toward an older white female shopper. As he approaches, and she spots him, she instinctively puts her hand on her purse to “protect” it.

These acts of implicit bias — the unconscious attribution of particular qualities or stereotypes to members of a certain social group — also run through Mr. Goldberg’s analysis. His unselfconscious use of the term “non-white” is an example. Black, brown and other people of color are diminished and rendered invisible and “less than” whenever they are defined not by who they are but in reference to who they are not. (Lest I be accused of “political correctness,” I refer back to those who long ago institutionalized social inequality.) Words really do matter, and the language we choose to use becomes either a conveyor belt of implicit bias that brings the past into the present, or a harbinger of a more equitable society to come.

Finally, the biggest tale of all occurs when Mr. Goldberg decries the notion that, today, “A white guy’s arguments can be dismissed out of hand because of the color of his skin.” Apparently, he is capable of recognizing social injustice, but only from the point of view of an aggrieved white man.

Deborah M. Roffman

The writer has taught at the Park School of Baltimore since 1975.