Where is an ambiguity at the heart of identity politics. The term suggests a politics centered on identity, as opposed to, say, class or interest group. So understood, identity politics is a species of tribalism in which all are permitted to assert their identity.
But identity politics can also describe a politics of victimization, guilt, and scapegoating where identity is a mere afterthought reducible to oppression. Understood in this second sense, it is a strange transmogrification of Christianity in which oppressor groups, possessing no identity in which they can take pride, must atone for the inherited sins of their fathers—without, however, any hope of redemption.
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