Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò's short but passionately argued treatise should perhaps have been titled Elite Capture: Don't Trust Anyone Who Is an Elite and That Most Definitely Includes People of Color. But that's less punchy and, more importantly, it's a tough message to package for identitarian progressive activists (and diversity/inclusion personnel), who often promote the idea that immutable characteristics like race or sex automatically equals progressive credentials that command deference. Which of course is laughably reductive. POCs are not a progressive monolith by any means; they aren't any kind of monolith. Nor should they ever be viewed as such because, well, that would be racist.
The subtitle "How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics" is unfortunate because it leads potential readers astray. This book is not a guide or an overview on "how" elites have co-opted supposedly progressive institutions. Its reasoning for such capture is certainly correct, but quite basic: people who gain power are often corrupted by that power because that power ends up serving their own interests. A person who has bootstrapped themselves up from a background of poverty may find that they would like to make sure their new middle or upper class status remains in place, and so will promote policies that support their continued enfranchisement and level of wealth, rather than supporting policies that would help uplift their former lower-classmates.
'Tis human nature, I suppose. I've seen it happen many times over the years while at the nonprofit where I work: passionate, activist POCs (comfortable with delivering angry lived-experience testimonials and, nowadays, weepy land acknowledgments) who rise in the ranks and/or get what they want (whatever that may be) and who then begin supporting hierarchical systems of control in an almost knee-jerk fashion. Rather than continuing the questioning of authority they once espoused from positions that had less authority. As a POC myself, I should be mad at the hypocrisy, but I can only shrug. Well, I'm in a position of authority too. Er, welcome to the club, my fellow sellouts! LOL?
Táíwò's prime example of a POC who embodies "elite capture" and that fooled progressive identitarians into thinking his platform is likewise progressive - by sophisticated use of progressive messaging and branding - is of course Obama. He calls this tendency to "center the most marginalized" - whether or not they actually believe in progressive or leftist policies - deference politics and he too-gently connects it to standpoint epistemology (the belief that those groups most affected by challenges are those who understand those challenges the best, and therefore should have their perspectives centralized). And so Obama - mixed-race but viewed as black - came to be seen as someone who embodies progressive values, simply because of his status as a black man, and so ignoring his actual upper-middle class background and his very clearly centrist and neoliberal political stances. I really appreciated that Táíwò also used himself as an example of this tendency, and how his identity as a black American would often trump consideration of his actual ethnicity and class background (Nigerian-American, presumably middle class).
This short book is also rather thin in terms of ideas; deconstructing deference politics appears to be Táíwò's primary aim, yet he handles his topic perhaps too gingerly. That said, there were quite a few things that I enjoyed and/or learned about. Individuals and activist groups like Carter G. Woodson, Lilica Boal, the PAIGC; the idea that Portugal was the world's first superpower (not sure that I agree, but it's fascinating to consider); "A constructive political culture would focus on outcome over process" (I fully endorse that!); game theory as a way to understand both politics and personal decision-making in terms of identity and claiming identity; the idea that trauma does not teach and is not about life lessons, but is rather about the nobility of survival. On that last idea, I particularly loved Táíwò's critique of "when trauma's importance and prevalence are framed as positive bases for social credentials and deference behaviors, rather than primarily as problems to deal with collectively." Of course, he's completely in error if he’s looking at trauma from a sociopolitical rather than a psychological perspective - trauma is an inherently individual experience - but he makes a good point when it comes to the fact that experiencing trauma does not mean that one is now an expert on the source of that trauma.
Unfortunately, a big issue came early for me in the book, and it cast rather a shadow over all that followed: Táíwò's odd misreading of the fable of The Emperor's New Clothes. The author posits that fable as an allegory of power and how power is expressed; per Táíwò, everyone sees that the emperor has power and so of course they will want to join that power base (or at least not be threatened by it) by pretending to see and then exalt those imaginary new clothes that he now has on. What Táíwò overlooks is the basic moral of that tale. The merchants were able to fool the emperor because they played on his vanity and insecurity, telling him that only the stupid or the foolish would be unable to see his new finery; the emperor did not want to be seen as foolish or stupid, and so he pretended that he saw and then put on some amazing clothes. And so everyone else did likewise, pretending to see a fabulous outfit - because who wants to be perceived as stupid or foolish? The fable is a psychological analysis highlighting a key part of human nature; it is not a sociopolitical evaluation of how systems of power are enacted. Can't believe the author didn't see that!
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