‘Not Black and White, but Black and Red’: Anti-identity identity politics and #AllLivesMatter

This article critically examines #AllLivesMatter, which emerged as a rebuttal to #BlackLivesMatter, arguing, in spite of its universalist pretentions, that it represents a cloaked identitarian politics which through a hegemonic narrative (re)presents itself as a radically inclusionary counter-narrative. I argue All Lives Matter exemplifies an anti-identity identity politics by invoking rhetoric in opposition to racial identities while smuggling in a somewhat elastic ‘postracial’ neoliberal subject as the foundational identity around which this new mobilisation is organised. The article outlines a definition for anti-identity identity politics and uses this as a lens for analysing All Lives Matter in order to interrogate this keyword.