The violent incidents involving white nationalists that occurred in Charlottesville, a historic college town in the U.S. state of Virginia, again highlighted the dangers of playing identity politics in the deeply divided nation, said experts.
"It's a dangerous and regressive setback, but it's a natural and logical reaction to extreme non-white identity politics, which largely vilified white people and demanded power and wealth transfer on the basis of race and gender," Lee Cheng, co-founder and director of the Asian American Legal Foundation, told Xinhua in an interview.
RESURGENCE OF WHITE NATIONALISM
The Charlottesville violence was "another resurgence" of white nationalism "in the world of identity politics," where everyone is defined by their skin color, gender, among others, Cheng added.
"I have been worried about the resurgence of white identity politics for some time," he said. "It didn't make sense to me that all white people, especially the poor ones, would accept being constantly told they are privileged and racist very well. "
Cheng's views was echoed by Perry Bacon Jr., a political writer for FiveThirtyEight, an website that focuses on opinion poll analysis.
"...now it appears that a kind of white identity politics is a key part of American politics," said Bacon in his article titled Charlottesville And The Rise Of White Identity Politics posted online Monday.
Identity politics is not a new thing in the United States, he said. From Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, presidents (mostly Republican) at least in recent decades have "regularly appealed to white, conservative-leaning voters by playing up fears and stereotypes about African-Americans and other minority groups," he added.
TWO COMPETING NARRATIVES
Bacon pointed out that there are two "competing narratives" about race and racism at the center of today's discussions in the United States.
One perspective, most directly expressed by Black Lives Matter activists but also shared by many Democratic politicians, the media and other elite institutions, is that a "Black Lives Matter" movement is "necessary because, by a lot of metrics, America has left blacks behind."
The movement emerged after the killing of Michael Brown by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 and the resulting protests.
The competing narrative, one expressed mainly by conservatives, is that "Black Lives Matter" is "essentially a liberal political movement like any other," and "not a reflection of real, structural discrimination or inequality."
"Conservatives therefore can and should make a counter-argument. And if blacks (and women and Latinos and Asians) are invoking their race and identity, why can't whites as well?" Bacon said.
One of the chants white nationalists repeatedly turned to as they marched in Charlottesville on Friday night and Saturday was "white lives matter" - a direct response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement.
The number of hate groups across the United States increased in 2016 to 917, up from 892 in 2015, according to an annual report on extremism in America released in February by Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.
The white and non-white identity politics "feeds on" each other, Cheng said, "they are unfortunately sucking in or destroying the center."
ASIAN AMERICANS' SITUATION
In Cheng's opinion, "Asian Americans, who are neither white nor considered minority by those who run the anti-white faction (which welcomes some yellow faces and voices as gatekeeper tokens but doesn't really want to afford Asians equal rights), are in deep trouble if either extreme wins."
"We will lose if either white supremacists (who are really the original identity-focused racists) win, or non-white identity focused racists win," he said. "We can only be safe if race and ethnicity are not permitted to be used under law for decision-making and discrimination."
"Charlottesville is the kind of America that identity politics is calling into being. It's time for straight talk about that," said Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative, in an article titled The Curse Of Identity Politics published on Sunday.
"It is not enough for conservative politicians and leaders to condemn these incidents. In their rhetoric, they need to start criticizing the principles of identity politics, across the board. They should emphasize what unites us as Americans," Dreher said.
President Donald Trump condemned white supremacist violence in Charlottesville on Monday, two days after an initial statement that blamed "many sides" for violence largely instigated by far-right activists.
