There are three different stories from the past week that I want to weave together as they speak to the same problem. The Greens’ Pacific leaders group resigned as they believe the Green Party is racist, the ACT party has stated they are losing confidence in the speaker due to ongoing racial harassment of their MPs by the opposition and Donald Trump questioned if Kamala Harris is really black.
First I must give a quick note on identity and politics. Identity politics is often criticised from the liberal right as being dangerous. In a mostly homogenous society this is correct, as identity politics damages social cohesion. When over 90 per cent of the population is homogenous, identity politics poses a risk to ethnic minorities being scapegoated. It is also unnecessary to the political functioning of the homogenous nation. Disagreements are on matters of policy, since both sides of the political aisle share a common ethnic, cultural and religious identity. However, in a multicultural democracy, this no longer holds true and the question of identity must inevitably take the foreground. Politics is no longer a question of competing policy, but a question of competing identities.
