Profs & Pints: How the Elite Captured Identity Politics


Details
Event Title & Speaker:
Profs and Pints Online presents: “How the Elite Captured Identity Politics,” with Olufemi Táíwò, assistant professor of political philosophy and ethics at Georgetown University and scholar of activism and the black radical tradition.
Event Cost & Ticket Info:
Online tickets: $12. This is an online event, and a recorded version of the talk will remain available online for viewing.
To purchase tickets, go to: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/identity/
Event Description:
The term “identity politics” was first popularized in a 1977 manifesto of the Combahee River Collective, an organization of black feminist activists claiming the right to set their own political agendas. In a recent interview with The Root and in an op-ed published in The Guardian, Barbara Smith, a founding member of the collective, said the black women who initially spoke of “identity politics” weren’t establishing themselves as a moral aristocracy—they were building a political viewpoint out of common experience to work toward “common problems.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/10/identity-politics-bernie-sanders-endorsement
Since then, however, many people have sought to weaponize identity politics rather than seeing it as a means to forge alliances across differences. Rather than building solidarity, they have closed ranks—especially on social media—around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.
In this talk, Professor Olufemi Táíwò will argue that identity politics itself isn’t at fault. So how did we get here? The answer, as Professor Táíwò will explain, is a concept called “elite capture.” The term "elite capture" is typically used to describe how a population’s most socially advantaged people tend to gain control over financial benefits that are meant for everyone, especially foreign aid dollars. But it's also been applied more generally to describe how political projects can be hijacked by the well positioned and resourced. It is a flexible concept that can also explain how even intangibles like knowledge, attention, and values get warped around our power structures - even when we're trying to dismantle them.
His talk will explain how radical political projects often get coopted by elites, and will use some examples from the work of black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, in particular his analysis of the diverging political interests of the black working class & black business owners from his 1957 book Black Bourgeoisie. Professor Táíwò will also compare the sociological concept of "elite capture" to the problem of "value capture" in the philosophy of game design, as explained by C. Thi Nguyen in his recent book, Games: Agency As Art.
About Profs & Pints:
Profs and Pints ( https://www.profsandpints.com ) brings professors and other college instructors into bars, cafes, and other venues to give fascinating talks or to conduct instructive workshops. They cover a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, popular culture, horticulture, literature, creative writing, and personal finance. Anyone interested in learning and in meeting people with similar interests should join. Lectures are structured to allow at least a half hour for questions and an additional hour for audience members to meet each other. Admission to Profs and Pints events requires the purchase of tickets, either in advance (through the Brown Paper Tickets link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. During the COVID-19 quarantine, Profs and Pints is hosting online events. Please note that your indication on Meetup of your intent to attend an event constitutes neither a reservation nor payment for that event.

Profs & Pints: How the Elite Captured Identity Politics