A few months ago, after BHO wrapped up the nomination (after Hillary conceded that is; I thought he wrapped it up after Wisconsin, but alas), at a party in Hyde Park I got into a conversation with a dead-ender Hillary supporter. She was very liberal but not supporting Obama because...I don't know why really. One justification was she lived in Indiana, which BHO was never going to win (lol). Anyways, during this conversation I defended BHO on a number of issues and each time she could she played her identity. On abortion it was "Well, I'm a women, so..." On race, "I'm a minority, so..." It was as though my views didn't count: on abortion because I had only one X chromosome, on race relations because my skin was white.
Similarly, in August, I had a brief discussion on the Iraq War with a Navy SEAL. At one point, he lambasted people "who have no idea what's going on on the ground," a not so-veiled shot at me. But I thought it curious that he thought, it seemed, I shouldn't have an opinion on the greatest foreign policy issue of the time because I hadn't been there. What would it say about me if I didn't have an opinion on Iraq? What level of ignorance would I need to possess to be indifferent? In what way are we better off when only the people most closely identified with an issue can offer opinion? Is our discourse improved by such limitations? Are we so unable to trust our fellow citizens to maintain perspective? Furthermore, it's not as though beliefs are homogenous within groups. Stressing identity obscures this point and de-emphasizes the importance of cross-group trust and cooperation to advance agendas, particularly civil rights agendas.
I'm verklempft. Discuss amongst yourselves.
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