Spring Break
Symposium kicks off with lecture on identity politics, oppression
Shaun Boutwell
Issue date: 3/31/05 Section: News
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Beverly Jenkins, a well-known and openly gay activist and organizational consultant, discussed issues such as dismantling single issue politics in her lecture, "Toward a More Inclusive Movement: Exploring Intersections of Identity Politics, Ethnicity, Socialization and Oppression."
"It's necessary to discuss who we are in this social movement, especially in this GLBT movement," Jenkins said.
Jenkins talked about the importance of identity by relating some of her early college experiences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"My college years were very confusing," she said. "I found myself struggling with my identity. Who was I?"
Jenkins said she struggled with being an African-American woman on a college campus that had a large white majority, calling it "very difficult and different."
"As a woman, I felt like an outsider," she said.
When she was in the company of other women, she was the only black woman, and when she was with other black people, she was the only gay one, Jenkins said. "There was really no one place I could fit in."
In order to figure out their identities, people must look toward a non-monolithic construction of who they are, she said.
"In the GLBT community, we must think in terms of multiplicity," Jenkins said.
Jenkins also discussed the role of oppression in regards to being an obstacle in finding identity, calling it "multi-layered" and "embedded in our own individual consciousness ... [and] an inherent part of our society."
"Identity politics work against the GLBT by creating the tools which further entrench the tools of oppression," Jenkins said. "By focusing on single-issue politics we are creating barriers to our success."
