Lesbian Feminist Who Helped Coin 'Identity Politics' Backs Sanders

Barbara Smith, a Black lesbian feminist who has worked in social justice movements for decades, has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.

"I believe that, among all the candidates, his leadership offers us the best chance to eradicate the unique injustices that marginalized groups in America endure," Smith wrote in a commentary published Monday in The Guardian.

Smith, a writer and scholar, was coauthor of 1977's Combahee River Collective Statement, which discussed the various types of oppression affecting Black women. It coined the term "identity politics" and "was instrumental in pushing the international left and other political movements to understand inequality as a structural and intersectional phenomenon which affects oppressed groups differently," she wrote in The Guardian.

Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont who is once again seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has been known to dismiss the idea of "identity politics." But his views have changed, Smith told Amy Goodman on the Wednesday edition of Goodman's program Democracy Now!

"In 2016, Bernie Sanders said identity politics distracts from what he considered real issues, like economic inequality and the decline of organized labor," Goodman said. "Has he changed his view of identity politics?"

"I think he's obviously changed," Smith responded. "And that's manifested in the kind of campaign that he's running. There's such a commitment to having a diverse, multiracial, multiethnic, various religions" in the campaign.

"And I also think that the term 'identity politics' has been so distorted, so distorted since we originally coined it. ... What we meant in 1977 by 'identity politics' is that Black women have a right to determine our own political agendas, period," she continued. "That's all that we meant. All the things that have been attached to the term 'identity politics' in succeeding decades, that's not what we were talking about. ... We weren't badmouthing or putting down anyone who wasn't our identical mirror image."

In her Guardian piece, Smith noted that Sanders has been a longtime advocate for racial justice. "Long before he thought about running for any office, let alone for president, Sanders fought for racial justice," she wrote. "He and I worked in different local branches of the same organization, the Congress of Racial Equality. ... I support Sanders because unlike most people of his generation he decided as a young person to challenge Jim Crow. I wonder if other candidates can say the same."

Smith, who was on Sanders's LGBTQ Steering Committee in his 2016 presidential campaign, wrote that she is "even more excited to support him now." He has many supporters who are women, people of color, Spanish speakers, and immigrants, she said. He has been endorsed by congresswomen of color Pramila Jayapal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.

"The stakes could not be higher," she concluded in the article. "Before the 2016 election I dreaded a return to the Jim Crow era signaled by the slogan 'Make America Great Again,' which obviously meant white. Tragically that is exactly what happened. Four more years is unthinkable. That is why I am working to elect President Bernie Sanders."