"In those environments, you then start getting a different kind of politics … that's based on, 'that person's not like me and it must be their fault,' and you start getting a politics based on a nationalism that's not pride in country but hatred for somebody on the other side of the border. And you start getting the kind of politics that does not allow for compromise, because it's based on passions and emotions," Obama said.
"It's identity politics," Baker said.
"Which is why, by the way, when I hear people say they don't like identity politics, I think it's important to remember that identity politics doesn't just apply when it's black people or gay people or women," Obama said. "The folks who really originated identity politics were the folks who said Three-Fifths Clause and all that stuff. That was identity politics … Jim Crow was identity politics. That's where it started."
When you read a more complete transcript, he meant to be saying that President Trump is an evil nationalist who hates foreigners but he got sidetracked by Baker's interjection of identity politics and said a few true things that I don't think he meant to say. But he's right, identity politics and intersectionality are just as racist as Jim Crow. They judge people by race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and possibly a few other traits rather than who they are. They try to dismiss it by redefining racism so that only white people can be racist but that puts us right back to defining people solely by their race.
I'm old enough to have actually heard Doctor Martin Luther King on TV and believe in his goal of a society where people are judged for who they are instead of the color of their skin. The Left has rejected that vision and embraced a new one that is as bad as what King was protesting against.
I hope that President Obama isn't forced to retract his statement.
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