re: #166 wrenchwench

As I said in the letter I mailed to Sanders today:

Since you are part of the leadership of the Democratic Party, I wanted to write to you about something that concerns me, specifically your use of the term identity politics. I think you are making a mistake in the way you are using it, and rather than bringing people together, you are only going to drive people apart.

The company I work for requires training for all of its employees on how to treat others. They don’t call it sensitivity training, but that’s the term that everyone is used to. The insight in the training is not to make people blind to color, gender, or physical handicap. That would be futile. Instead, the training helps us recognize when we are engaged in this behavior so that we can correct it. Because it’s the person who’s in power that is generally engaging in identity politics.

For example, when a disabled man is not hired because of a perceived weakness even though it wouldn’t affect his job, he’s not the one that engaged in identity politics. When a woman is not promoted because the all male decision group decides that woman aren’t cut out for leadership, it is not the woman who engaged in identity politics. When blacks are pulled over four times more than whites, it is not the blacks who are engaged in identity politics. When an older man is teased by his younger colleagues, calling him “grandpa” and “old man”, he’s not the one engaging in identity politics (yes, this was part of our training).

All any of these people want is to be treated as equals, but that cannot happen until those in power recognize what they are doing.

I would like to find a way to make poor whites finally see that, by considering themselves different than poor blacks, or different from women, or different from any other group, they are too small of a force to prevent the wealthy from hurting them and their children. The needs and wants of poor blacks and poor whites really are the same, and this false division keeps them from having better lives. Why hire a poor white man for $8 when you can hire a poor black man for $6?

Can you find a way to tell whites that by separating themselves from minorities, it allows the wealthy to degrade their lives. Democrats attempted to increase those covered by overtime pay. Republicans not only took that away, but their representatives are actually gloating about it.

Since you are good with words, I would like to see if you, along with others in the Democratic party, figure out a way to change the way poor are treated. We have made poor a stigma, when it’s not. The real shame is that we as a country do as little as we can to take care of the poor. I am not a religious person, but I do know enough to know that according to the New Testament, we will be judged on how we treat the poor and the sick. We need to find a way to change the conversation to taking care of each other.

While I agree that we need to bring in more of the marginalized people, the Democratic party already represents a large number of people that get pushed to the side. We need to include all of them, and encourage everyone to participate.

Thank you for reading. I am in a red part of Texas, where Democratic representation will be scarce thing for a long time.