The people I know in real life are activists (provided those who attend protests and join groups of action count?) and academics. In particular, one is getting her PhD in sexual and reproductive health, specifically focusing on access for minorities (she is staying at my apartment currently, and largely inspired me to post here, because either I'm crazy, or she is...if I hear "why do men always..." one more time, I'm going to snap, but that's beside the point...though, maybe that at least explains my tone here). She's written papers on the influence of religion and...something else (sorry, I really shouldn't forget this) on access and perception of access to abortion in the middle east (mostly Jordan, iirc). She seems versed in critical theory, and it seems relevant to her work, but I don't know how representative this makes her of the field at large?

Thank you very, very much for all the links. I'm going to read them! You are absolutely right that I "think that the analysis should be done better" and that I "happen to also hate the people who [I] think of as being representative of identity politics" -- indeed, I'm taking people like the one I've mentioned as representing the field at large, which may be a mistake. You may very well be correct that I think the analysis should be done better, and don't inherently take issue with the field itself. There are plenty of papers I've read I think are crockpot, but don't think the field they were published in is totally nonsense, and this might be another case. To this end, I'm not exactly who I should say I'm critiqueing here? There is absolutely a vocal subset who have done/said exactly what I'm referencing here, and there's been plenty of discussion around racism as bias vs bias+power (there was a CMV a week or so ago about exactly this) that really just amounts to "being a dick to white people is fine, no matter who the person is, because white people," and waving that off as strawman is just either a lie or ignorance. That said, I don't know how exactly to group and label people with those perspectives.

Anyway, this is hands down the best comment so far, thank you! I'll read your links, and consider exactly the last points you made. I very well may reward you a delta here! In which case, truly thank you for providing meaningful commentary! :)