Extra Credit Lecture: Kimberle Crenshaw on Intersectionality

Last Thursday, I attended a packed lecture given by Kimberle Crenshaw about the topic of intersectionality. More so than learning about intersectionality (a topic I am well acquainted with from many women’s studies classes under my belt), I enjoyed learning about Crenshaw herself. I never knew how important she was in the civil rights movement of today, and was glad I learned about her background. She currently is a professor of law at both UCLA and Columbia. She has published many works surrounding the term she deemed “critical race theory,” that tweezes apart systems of oppression in an intersectional way.

I’ve written papers on intersectionality, but I really liked how she defined and explained it herself.  According to Crenshaw, intersectionality is not one solid idea or format to understanding, but it is a lens, a tool, we use to pursue certain projects. It is elaborative, and analytic; nothing is set in stone. The way by which intersectionality is articulated changes from project-to-project, depending on what you are talking about. A metaphor for intersectionality would be roads as the axis of subordination (racial hierarchy, patriarchy, etc.) and traffic as the dynamics of subordination (vehicles of power that impact people such as race, class, gender). How do these identities cross paths in a particular way that oppresses a specific group in a certain way?

An example she gave of when she realized ‘intersectionality’ is a concept that needs to be singled out is when G.M. was being sued by a group of black women (DeGraffenreid v G.M.), saying that there were only jobs for white women, but not black women. G.M. defended that they were giving jobs to people of all races, but this was not recognizing intersectionality. All black men were given line-assembly jobs, and all white women were given secretarial positions. This left out the group of black women. Our society and our laws recognize racism as a black men’s issue, and gender as a white women’s issue. This is a narrow perception that leaves groups of people invisible.

She went on to talk about a recent example of this, in particular black girls. She is currently initiating a campaign called ‘Black Girls Matter’, to bring attention to women of color, because they suffer from racism too. Obama’s ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ is his signature racial justice initiative that funds programs for men and boys of color. It ignores black girls and women, who suffer some of the same problems as black boys and men, even though the statistics of MBK90 (yearly update) were data points coming from both boys and girls. In addition, on March 3^rd 2015, a campaign called ‘Let Girls Learn’ came out to help send girls in impoverished nations to school. Though, this perpetuates the assumption that only girls internationally suffer.

I really enjoyed hearing what she was involved in, and thought it was a well structured, thought provoking lecture! It was a call for all to go beyond the myth, ask questions, and to talk to the excluded.