Intersectional Discriminations

African American women lead the intersectional feminist movement.  Although the concept of intersectional feminism has been around for decades, Kimberle Crenshaw brought the idea of intersectionality into focus by coining the term in 1989. To this day intersectionality has no definitive definition. The best definition out there is by Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, who defines intersectionality as the believe that our social justice movement must consider all the intersections of identity, privilege and oppression that people face in order to be just and effective.  Intersectionality should be the underlining philosophy at all levels of struggle including individual, institutional and government to accomplish human rights.

This graphic shows some overlapping layers of discrimination that exist in our society.  Across the spectrum of marginalized groups, it would be hard press to find a person that is discriminated by just one prejudice. Discriminations can also impact say a white middle class transgender who is continually ousted from job after job, where they end up working in low paying jobs because LGBTQ people don’t have job protection in this country. 

Acknowledging how different forms of discrimination intersect with and amplify discrimination is a critical way to ensure all people reap the benefits of our communities. Said simply by Anna J. Cooper (1858 – 1964) “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class-it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.” She said so simply what human rights is all about.

The question that comes up so often “Is intersectionality divisive?”  In an article entitled Is Feminism Hurting Gay Men? in a 1990’s Christopher Street gay men’s publication shows us an example of when a minority in a human rights movement call out oppression in that movement.  That minority is then called out as hurting the movement.  The philosophy of standing together for a single cause or you might hurt any chance of change while being reassured that your time will come has become a strategy that perpetuates discrimination particularly for those who have intersecting oppressions. Women suffer as victims of this strategy more times than not. 

Women’s suffrage as a historical example of the strategy “solidarity above all else” kept women from getting the vote for decades.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the founding mothers of Women’s Suffrage, formed an organization for marginalized groups of white and black women and black men dedicated to the goal of universal voting rights.  The abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements interlocked in this common goal for a long time.  This solidarity broke down in 1870 when congress passed a constitutional amendment ending discrimination against black Americans granting black men the right to vote.  It wasn’t until fifty years later that women both black and white got the vote. 

In supporting an intersectional activist philosophy, you may be criticized for speaking against an oppressive act by movements outside of your primary struggle.  Recently the Jewish community slammed Dr. Angela Davis for just that.  The Birmingham Institute announced they were awarding Dr. Davis their Fred L Shuttleworth Human Rights Award.  After the Jewish community in Birmingham heard the news, they wrote a letter to the institute asking them withdraw Dr. Davis nomination for the award.  In the letter they called Dr. Davis’ political work in support of Palestinians and her condemnation of Israel’s violence towards Palestinians anti-sematic. 

These examples of the Women’s Suffrage movement and Dr. Davis’s show the danger of a single-issue movement. The social justice movement here in the United States has the potential to be the next grand social movement if all social justice organizations take up an intersectional philosophy.  This social justice movement seems fragmented encompassing groups with a single issue.  Now I know that taking on an intersectional philosophy can be daunting. People just naturally are passionate on issues that they themselves experience.

Nonprofits and individuals who take up the call of social justice even in support of a single issue have the opportunity to impact institutional social justice at an intersectional point.  Governments here in the Northwest have for many years had Equity and Social Justice programs which seem hopefully from the outside.  But on a closer examination these Social Equity programs primary goal is for the government’s internal agencies to adopt an equity perspective in the implementation of their programs.  Now that’s not a bad goal but what I have found through reading and research is these programs have not accomplished what they set out to do. 

In this research it has become evident to me that any programs not having a human rights mandate are not forceful enough to create significant change. For example, local governments struggle with homelessness.  King County’s and Seattle’s homeless population grows indicating a failure in policy while cities like New York and Washington D.C.’s homeless population decreases.  What’s the difference in policy philosophy, New York and Washington D.C. have a human rights mandate.

Human rights as much as we have been led to believe that United States is the champion on human rights worldwide in our communities we have a long way to go to accomplish human rights which would lead to an institutional out look of intersectionality. 

Human rights is a logical philosophy to adopt for any intersectional program working on social justice.  Anything short of this fails to accomplish any broad base change.  All you have to do is listen to Trump for a short time to make a list of all the marginalized groups targeted by him and main stream America.  Trump has amplified the need for working on intersectionality.  Just think about intersectionality in the progressive work that you do, start recognizing where you can identify intersectional oppression and you will start to see the difference in your work.