Elite Capture: How The Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

In this timely and insightful work of political analysis, author Olúfémi O. Táiwò breaks down the ways in which elite interests—from establishment politicians to mainstream media outlets, and even the C.I.A.—have hijacked radical social critiques in order to serve their own interests. Tracing the origins of 'identity politics' to its progenitors in the Black feminist Combahee River Collective, Táiwò illuminates the original idea as an opportunity to build broader coalitions to take on racial capitalism and patriarchy. Elite Capture makes a vital intervention in the discourse around identity, seeking to revive the Combahee River Collective's original notion of radical solidarity, and to organize activists around a common axis that recognizes the intertwined nature of oppression.