Identity Politics In The 1970's

As a consequence of the activism that occurred during the 1960’s, it changed the tone as far as politics was concerned for a good many of groups of people (Schultz 2014). What it changed was the attitude of how people thought or identified with politics and politicians concerning themselves or their cliques. Whereas before the 1960’s the general consensus was to vote accordingly as to what was for the good of the nation as a whole. The reason historians blame the 1970’s for this type of self-centeredness is that there was not a fundamental common ground for the entire American population to focus on to bring it together. This type of thinking became known as identity politics because of the divisions that were created during the 1960’s (Schultz 2014).
One example of identity politics to consider was the women’s movement, where the spotlight fell on the issues of equal rights, sexual harassment in the workplace, and for educating women on health issues (Schultz 2014). An important legal decision that highlights the 1970’s timeline is the Roe v. Wade law over abortion rights which is still a troubling issue in today’s politics. Throughout the 1970’s there were
The thought pattern shifted to the idea of if blacks could change the American perception of themselves they would be more accepted in society (Schultz 2014). As the result the term “Black is beautiful” became the slogan of the black community. Another example came with affirmative action, where the federal government wanted employers to hire specific amounts of minorities within the workplace. The roots of affirmative action can be traced to Richard Nixon’s influence, which was used with the intention of destroying the Democratic alliance still in place from the 1930’s (Schultz 2014). What affirmative action effectively did was to create fractures between black and white workers which were already