Liberal identity politics and its failings

The lack of nuance in understanding oppression is a feature of contemporary identity politics, particularly as it is commonly applied.  I understand that there are those capable of applying it with more nuance than is usual, but more often than not what we are left with are moral truisms that represent a very static and simplistic notion of power relations.  Moreover, the human element of these relationships goes missing in action.

While I hold that society is, in general, stratified, according to ideological determinations of what gender is skin colour has been historically dominant, the interplay between the person and his or her society is infinitely complex.

One blogger acknowledges how psychological projection is behind the fact that if we depart from our gender roles we will be negatively judged.   I have also noticed another way in which psychological projection is used -- to serve the structure of liberal identity politics.  It's a way of passing on a guilt complex about "privilege" (a code word for one's status as historical oppressor).  In terms of a moral stratification of guilt of purification, a person who confesses their status as oppressor is purer than one who will not confess it.  So, liberal systems of guilt stratification in America give the former oppressor (for instance, anyone who has white skin), a way out of having a negative, oppressor status.

In Australia, a similar mechanism of purging one's oppressor status occurs.  The hierarchy of moral purification states that white Australians who pay lip service to issues of "race" are automatically purified.  They undergo greater degrees of purification if they can point out that others may have expressed themselves in ways that show them to be guilty of that which  these liberals have ritually purified themselves -- their racial guilt complex. Note that it is the guilt complex, not the real oppression that people want to free themselves from. This is particularly the case when the oppression continues, as it does in Australia, where Aboriginals are treated differently, not least in the form of the Northern Territory paternalistic governmental "intervention". When flagrant abuses of power continue, under the name of everyday Australians, it is not surprising that they continue to seek ways to deflect their blame by focusing on others whom they would like to label as more guilty than they. The magical thinking that involves projecting one's sense of guilt into others also stems from this sense that one's own society is not in the clear with regard to its current racist proclivities.

Projection becomes a very powerful mechanism to try to get rid of one's feeling of historical induced guilt.   In Australia, one is always trying to find someone who looks more guilty to oppress with one's guilt complex.