Not Always in Knots

Abstract

Not Always in Knots Martha Minow, Not Only Myself Identity, Politics and the Law. New York: New York Press, 1997. Pp. 245. $25.00. In Not Only Myself Identity Politics and the Law, Martha Minow explores the problems with relying on identity politics to resolve the paradoxes and conflicts of social problems, especially those that resist neat solutions. In framing her thoughts, Minow, a law professor at Harvard, often returns to first-century Rabbi Hillel's paradoxical questions: If I am not myself, who will be me? If I am not others, what am I? And if not now, when? Although identity politics take one big step toward others and thus partially meets the Rabbi's command, they are limited to embracing others who are similar to oneself. Thus, Minow searches a more all-encompassing method of being for others. Minow employs examples from law and politics and from the arts, literature, and humanities that span both law and morality. She does not shy from explaining the complicated legal issues that arise with her examples, but she then illuminates the limits of law in addressing them. To her credit, Minow does not touch either extreme of the debate-the gutter of talk-radio or the excesses of postmodernist theorizing-but instead provides a concise, readable text which searches approaches to problems that often defy simple solutions, Minow identifies two entwined strands of mistakes regarding identity politics: ignorance, and the routine of individuals. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge regarding past and present atrocities committed upon persons based on their identity. Minow provides myriad examples of such ignorance: her law students, instance, know nothing of the U.S. government's internment camps Japanese American citizens during World War II and are truly shocked when they encounter sexual harassment or racism. Routine categorization involves the assumption that group membership serves as a proxy shared experiences especially as victims of societal prejudice. Such offends both those who are committed to individualism and those who are committed to a deliberative community of like individuals who are not necessarily victims or continually victimized. But the weight of group identities is undeniable, Minow acknowledges. Social institutions work to make them real; so do long histories of enslavement, subordination, or other sustained maltreatment. It does little good to tell people to halt preoccupation with group identity and past pain and to defer to the common good. Identity politics help some people feel connected and empowered: example, organizing against shared oppression builds a sense of belonging among members of social movements, and coming out aids young gay men and lesbians to find acceptance in a new community. Criticisms of identity politics come both from those who place the individual at the center of political and moral discussion and worry that any emphasis on groups is a threat to national cohesion, and from those who warn that group focus distracts attention from economic disparities and splinters coalitions that could otherwise work greater economic justice. Minow goes further to suggest that identity politics ignores the intersectionality of the multiple groups of which an individual can be a member. Not only can one individual self-identify into a variety of categories, but all group memberships are not necessarily complementary. She uses a story of an HIV-positive gay man attending a musical with his grandmother, a widow devoted to family and art, to show how multiple and divergent identities can enhance relationships and bring people together. We do not need to be the same to be together. Law, Minow finds, bolsters solidity of group identities while ignoring or masking the complexities of real lives. American legal treatments of race, family status, and American Indian tribal identity provide illustrations. …