Let’s Not Let Intersectionality Spell Erasure
26 May
I first heard of the term intersectionality from my friend, Diana Fox, an Anthropology Professor who studies and teaches across a variety of subjects including Caribbean culture, feminism, gender and sexuality. The topic came up some time ago after she read a particular blog post of mine which she felt looked at race as simply Black and White, thereby creating a potentially divisive, binary effect. She went on to say that individuals possess many layers of identities, many blends of culture and heritage, and that we must be careful to address the complexities of Black identities, because there is Black Caribbean culture, which in itself can be broken down by island, there is Nigerian culture, and so on. Diana also said that when we look at a person and the many different kinds of identities that make them who they are–women, Black, cis-gender, Jamaican, middle-class—we find some commonalities, or intersections of identification, among some of those points. This recognition of our multiple identities enables us to look at ourselves, and one another, as more whole human beings.
Diana was careful to add that our racial, ethnic, and cultural identities are also linked to the varying layers of privilege and oppression each one possesses. She did so, by sharing about the work of Black lawyer, feminist, and scholar on critical race theory, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, who first coined the term intersectionality, and developed an intersectional theory, in 1989. Diana made it a point to say that our layers of identities and their varying degrees of privilege and oppression are inextricably linked to one another and cannot be separated out. Therefore, if we consider all of this, we can see how looking at race as a singular identity can be problematic.
Crenshaw came up with the term intersectionality when […]
