That is not to suggest that there are instances where defensive identity politics has not resulted in individualistic patterns of behaviour that have led to dead-end, identity-for-its-own-sake, politics. It has spawned ‘as a’ culture, where it is fashionable to ground one’s opinion in their experience ‘as a Muslim’ or ‘as a black man’. As a way of approaching the world, it links credibility to identity, rather than critical faculties. This is doubly damaging – it cedes and vacates space to the white experience as ‘mainstream’ and diminishes the authority of non-white people by painting them
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