Well put. Aspects of identity are often used to virtue signal in the place of actually helping the most vulnerable people in society.

Concerning the implication that progressive social policies like Medicare for All are a desirable alternative to reparations for African Americans, I’m reminded of a passage from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Case for Reparations:

…reducing American poverty and ending white supremacy are not the same. The lie ignores the fact that closing the “achievement gap” will do nothing to close the “injury gap,” in which black college graduates still suffer higher unemployment rates than white college graduates, and black job applicants without criminal records enjoy roughly the same chance of getting hired as white applicants with criminal records.

There are clearly racial issues creating and sustaining black poverty which could not possibly be addressed without emphasis on identity. I fully agree that electing black Presidents does nothing at all to solve these issues without actual policies. However, surely there are numerous issues in which the prevalence of identity-based injustice should play a role in determining which solutions should be enacted. Is your stance that all discussion of such issues should ignore race, gender, etc. entirely or that there are sometimes other, more politically-viable means of addressing the issues without invoking identity?

Anyhow, thanks for the interesting read.