**5. Conclusion**

I have briefly indicated the subtle manner through which the symbolic order of whiteness weaponizes the Real for its own justification (i.e., statistical intersectionality). This analysis only arises from the presuppositions presented at the beginning of my investigation. First, identity politics taps into the Real through its dialectic of intersubjectivity and intersectionality, as the latter represents the death drive of the former. Second, recent psychoanalytic forays into the discursive formation of identity politics have proven woefully insufficient for capturing its unconscious machinations: a surface-level affirmation to discern the meaning of being-X with, simultaneously, the undermining, subterranean negation of any discernible meaning for being-X. Those who deny the validity of identity politics (Schwartz and Žižek) overlook its destabilizing tendencies, and those who embrace the validity of identity politics (Seshadri-Crooks and MacCannell) overlook the importance of intersectionality in determining (and making indeterminate) the meaning of identity in the political. Finally, the Real of identity politics has become the instrument for legitimizing the symbolic order: through intersectional analyses of violence (e.g., black-on-black crime), a series of oppressive apparatuses, such as over-policing, have been thoroughly legitimized. Future psychoanalytic investigations should adopt a similar methodological approach, namely through a recognition of identity politics as a destabilizing force in relation to the symbolic order and, resultantly, an acknowledgement of the symbolic order's manipulation of identity politics.
