Whenever I hear members of the Right denigrate "Identity Politics," I want to laugh. "Identity Politics" is a bogeyman term meant to hide its true origin. White men invented Identity Politics, and having identified people not like them as "others," they now hold us responsible for being "other." The white which you consider yourselves is not only an "identity," but also your determination of who goes atop of the human heap.

Black and brown people did not come to the Americas, label themselves, and demand to have themselves and their offspring provide free labor and be legally separated from the rest of American society. Natives did not label themselves as "others." White settlers did that in their grab for land and placed them on reservations for no reason other than their non-white skin. Women did not decide that they should not vote, own property, or be denied rights because they have wombs. Men did that. The LGBTQ community wants nothing more than to enjoy the same rights and privileges that straight people take for granted. Did they themselves decide that they should have fewer rights? Did white men discriminate only against individuals and not against whole groups? Where was that, and when?

Now it is just "the white thing to do" having given people the status of "other" to blame them for their "otherness." I am old enough to remember when prayer was mandated in public schools. Among the verses we chanted was this, from the 100th Psalm. "...it is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves."

The white men who have "made" people others are the ones who have manufactured the "identities," decided in which group we belong, and manufactured the false belief that these skin-deep differences have then called for the discrimination practiced against us. We fight as groups because others have grouped us. Do you really disapprove of "identity politics?" Prove it, and give up your "whiteness."