There is something about identity politics that upsets people. Swedish writer Sakine Madon has written an entire essay blaming identity politics for Sweden’s bad record on integration of immigrants into mainstream society. I disagree with her. In my experience, identity politics is necessary to identify inequality and discrimination, and it is gives strength to people who belong to a marginalized minority.

Read Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”-speech here. Would the world really be better had he not demanded equality for black men and women?

Read Harvey Milk’s speech about hope here. What would the world look like for gay people had people like Milk not stood up for their beliefs?

Read David Ben-Gurion’s Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel here. Can anyone honestly say that the Jewish people had been better off without a fulfilled Zionist dream of a homeland and refuge?

I like identity politics. People who share a common history and culture can create miracles for themselves by challenging marginalization and oppression. The opposite to identity politics is submissive victimhood.

(In the Twitter era, all people are one-name personalities—like Cher and Madonna, but with an @-symbol as prefix. The next step is to simply go without a name. Prince tried it for a while in the 1990s.)