Giving Compass' Take:

• YES! Magazine interviews Ashanti Monts-Treviska and Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell about the importance of embracing identity and rejecting a system that preserves privilege. Are we on the path to making change in this area?

• Anybody who works in the world of philanthropy should examine the concept of identity politics and the misperceptions that are out there. This article can be the first step to a healthier dialogue.

• Here's a deeper dive on understanding intersectionality and power dynamics in society.

In 2018, the term “identity politics” is often associated with the promotion of tokenized personalities rather than on the representation and advancement of oppressed communities within society. This form of identity politics often revolves around empty partisan placards and exclusive single-issue platforms rather than on forming inclusive alliances meant to stimulate fundamental structural change. As such, it reinforces a populism that serves white supremacy and patriarchy.

The crisis of identity politics has undermined the concept of intersectionality, which is viewed as critical to the struggle for liberation from all forms of oppression. The recent assassination of the Brazilian Black queer activist Marielle Franco and the consequent public uproar demonstrate the threat intersectional leaders pose to the ruling establishment that uses division and preserves privilege to stifle change. Leaders such as Franco serve a vital unifying role in a peoples’ transnational solidarity movement that embraces — rather than eliminates — identities.

Ashanti Monts-Treviska co-manages a social enterprise, Cascadia Deaf Nation, which focuses on creating a member-owned cooperative model that co-creates thriving spaces with Deaf Black Indigenous People of Color (DBIPOC) in British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. Monts-Treviska is a doctoral student in transformative studies and consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell is a Pacific Indigenous scholar and transformative coach who intermingles Indigenous epistemology and Western philosophies.

Together, Monts-Treviska and Ebalaroza-Tunnell facilitate spaces for dialogue that shift paradigms and challenge the status quo. They are now working on producing a resilience and adaptability workshop to address the dynamics between trigger and response.

Read the full article about misunderstanding identity politics undermining just society by Yoav Litvin at YES! Magazine.