Sometimes when reading, you can read through a passage, realize you have no idea what you just read, say “ah, well,” and keep moving on. Other times, you snap out of your daze and re-read what you just read because what you have been reading is too good to let a momentary attention lapse stop you from taking it all in. When it came to the readings for this week regarding feminist theory, I often found myself wanting to re-read anything I missed, as I sat back astonished at how much information I felt like I was taking in from the words of Virginia Woolf, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Sara Ahmed, and Kimberle Crenshaw. I have taken part in my critical thinking sessions over my semesters as an undergraduate student in the Adolescent Education: English program, but the critical thinking I could feel these authors performing, and thus causing me to perform, was exceptional in my opinion. In particular, Taylor and Crenshaw’s pieces have caused me to ponder a couple of questions that, even if I thought of them before, I do not have sure answers to.
Taylor and Crenshaw, whether intentionally or not, both talk at length in their pieces about the idea of intersectionality. Taylor discusses not only how important black feminism is to her contemporary social climate, but why fighting for black women’s rights and justice is superior to fighting for black rights and justice and women’s right and justice separately. Crenshaw essentially does much of the same in her TED talk, but she puts a title on it: intersectionality. Taylor and Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality, which is to look at all of the prejudices someone is dealing with together, rather than separately, really caught my attention. The reason for this is pretty plain and simple — I have often wondered whether it is better to look at battles that oppressed people are facing together or separately. I have also wondered whether or not if someone is dealing with multiple prejudices at one, is it better to focus on one of those prejudices at a time, or to tackle them at the same time?
Up until these readings, if you had asked me if, let us say, a black woman should fight back against racism and sexism that she is facing at once, or separately, I probably would have said separately. It made sense to me that the most likely way for someone to fight back successfully against oppression they are facing is to take things one at a time, otherwise I figured not enough attention would be paid to each piece of oppression over time. In other words, I figured that the black woman from the example above, and those like her, should focus on fighting back against racism or sexism on its own, and then when there has been sufficient progress in that battle, then move onto the other form of oppression. This stems from an idea that I had developed when having discussions about the LGBTQ community in some of my past classes. During these discussions, I formed the idea that it was not fair to “lump” these oppressed groups together, and that it would be more beneficial for these groups if they stood out on their own. I felt like putting them together only diminished their individual importance, and so going into reading about black feminism/intersectionality, I felt like talking about racism and sexism together (although other topics, like heterosexism, are included as well) would not give each issue enough attention.
To make a long story short, Taylor and Crenshaw changed my mind. Now, it is not like I read a few lines from Taylor and immediately changed my opinion as a whole, and it is not like I listened to a few minutes of Crenshaw’s TED talk and felt like I was wrong and stupid before having listened to her. Taylor and Crenshaw really just brought up a number of thoughts and ideas that I had not considered much of, and upon hearing or reading these ideas, I was forced to critically think about a number of topics and opinions (which I guess is the point of this class, so 10 points to Dr. Savonick for grouping these readings together). Taylor’s introduction to the “Combahee River Collective Statement,” and the CRC statement itself, made me think about how difficult it would be for a black woman to separate her battles against racism and sexism. Simply put, these black woman are not dealing with racism and sexism at very different times, they are dealing with them at the same time. In fact, looking at racism and sexism so separately can only lead to more trouble for black woman, which Crenshaw attested to when telling the story about Emma DeGraffenreid. DeGraffenreid had a court case thrown out against a potential employer that did not hire her, in her eyes, because she was a black woman, because the judge noted that this employer was hiring black people and was hiring woman. In other words, the judge felt this employer was not being sexist towards woman or racist towards black people, but Crenshaw points out that DeGraffenreid was feeling this employer’s racism and sexism at the same time as the result of being a black woman. If the judge had looked at how DeGraffenreid, as a black woman, could be facing this combination of racism and sexism, or this intersectionality, then maybe he would not have been so keen on throwing out DeGraffenreid’s case. It was when reading and listening to points like those I have talked about in this paragraph that I realized that it is almost next to impossible, and probably unreasonable, for a person who is facing multiple forms of oppression to only focus on one form at a time. It is also likely next to impossible and unreasonable to separate similar forms of oppression from each other, because these issues and forms of oppression do not happen so singularly and individually like I may have previously though, they often happen together and at the same time (which seems to be Taylor and Crenshaw’s point, so 10 points to them as well).
With all of this being said about the clarification of some of my ideas and opinions regarding racism, sexism, and oppression, I do still have some questions that these readings brought up for me. While I agree now that the concept of intersectionality is important to recognize and use in battles against oppression, is it possible that combining too many different forms of oppression can have that negative effect on the oppressed that I was worried about? In a specific instance, I wonder if extending the LGBTQ acronym to something like LGBTTQQIAAP could be dangerous. I would love to hear what anyone reading this thinks in a comment or in class. I also wonder about if these battles against oppression can be fought and (at least partially) won by those being oppressed, or if they absolutely need the help from some of the oppressors in order to gain progress. For example, do black people, civil rights organizations, and black rights movements need white voices and white members in order for racism to weaken? Does it make more sense for those organizations and movements to only be led and occupied by black people, and if so, is that a sustainable way for black people to fight towards justice?
These readings not only gave me many answers, but it also gave me some questions to continue to think about. If anyone has something to say about those questions, I would love to hear it, and if you read all the way down to here, I appreciate you and consider you a hero of mine.
Hi Jacob!
I found your post to be incredibly insightful to the articles you focused on. I also found myself struck by, particularly, Crenshaw’s approach at introducing the concept of intersectionality. Her TEDtalk was particularly engaging for me and I think especially important.
In response to one of the questions you pose, specifically about the LGBT community, I have some thoughts on the matter. Now it’s no surprise that I’m an active part of the LGBT community but I by no means speak for the whole. My thoughts reflect my own experience and what I’ve seen around me. I think in some ways the question doesn’t entirely make sense within the context of intersectionality, but at the same time it does. I wouldn’t have considered the expanding of the acronym to be a version of attempting to account for intersectionality for a single person. In the case of a black woman, it’s easy to see the two aspects that would be at a crossroads (gender and race). But many of the letters past LGBT can not all be imposed onto the same person. You can’t be both a lesbian and bisexual. But you could, I suppose, be a Bi romantic, homosexual, transgender, Indian woman. But with that the lines are clear as well (romantic identity, sexual identity, gender identity, and race). Those are all things that would come at a cross road, but don’t necessarily negate each other UNLESS you get into the arguments that TERF’s usually get into which separate sex (as in biology) politics and gender politics. Then you’re liable to have a negative reaction just because TERFs don’t consider trans women as women so then their intersection becomes a point of contention.
BUT we don’t support TERFs here, so this is kind of like arguing that feminism is a problem because menimism (does anyone remember that?) exists as well.
Either way, this was an interesting question but I think on the whole intersectionality doesn’t create negative outcomes as much as it forces more specificity to be acknowledged and allowances are made by realizing these compounding factors.
Hi Jacob! I really enjoyed your blog post and thought that you brought up some really important points. In response to your question about the possibility of “needing” white people in order for racism to weaken is a very complex idea/scenario in my eyes. I feel as though a white person teaching/lecturing the ideas of racism to people (especially a big group of people) can indicate and show their white privilege which I see to be negative. This is because it demonstrates that these white people, in teaching the wrongs of racism are also people that have had the privilege of being white and therefore have never experienced racism and have been allowed the platform/privilege to speak on these regards. Whereas I feel that a black person teaching people on the issues of racism is more important. This is because it shows the ways in which black people can rise to power and go against the racist society in order to create their own platform to speak on the issues they have experience first-hand. On the other hand, I think that it is important in day to day interaction for white people to educate their white friends on the issues of racism. For each person to educate others in everyday conversation could help create a less racist society because all of these interactions by each group of people could potentially lead to a bigger picture.
I also wanted to talk about your blog post and the wonderful subject of intersectionality that you brought up. Intersectionality is something that is extremely important and crucial in understanding the way that society is prejudice towards certain groups of people. I also feel like intersectionality has a spectrum in that it can worsen in situations where people have more oppression towards them. For example, a black transgender woman will have a lot more prejudice towards her because she has three identities that are viewed negatively by society. She is a woman, she is a transgender, and she is black. Going off of this idea of intersectionality, I think it is also important to bring up the term’s antiracist and feminist. Many people who consider themselves to be antiracist or a feminist are oftentimes hypocrites. This is because feminism and antiracism include a multitude of different people. To me you can only be a feminist if you believe in the equality of all women including their race. Coincidingly people who deem themselves to be antiracist but are prejudice towards women are not antiracists because being antiracist also includes the equality of women of that race.
With all of this being said I wanted to say that I really enjoyed your blog post and thought you brought up some important questions that important to ask and to have answered by different people. I really am interested to see other people’s responses to these questions and see if there is anything that I can learn from other people on these subjects of discussion.
Hey Jacob,
Awesome job of drawing a narrative between the Taylor and Crenshaw pieces! What really struck me was your analysis of intersectionality and why it is so important that we not separate one struggle from another. Watching Crenshaw’s TED Talk really drove home the problems that arise when you belong to two disenfranchised groups at the same time. While both touched on many of the same readings and moments in history, I think it’s important to be as consistent as possible with this narrative in particular since it is so prone to being quite literally ripped apart when people try to scrutinize only half of the picture. In that respect, it can be very difficult to attempt to explain something this complex and hidden from the public eye. I also find this difficult to discuss with less open-minded people. All too often I encounter someone who can hear what we’re saying, but doesn’t understand it, which to me is baffling. For something so complex and intricate, it can very easily be described as taking away from that which already has less, which in my mind creates an image of a kind of doubled-deficit. However, at the same time I can only speculate and hypothesize through read experiences, as I am unlikely to every experience that kind of discrimination myself. That in itself creates layers of disconnect that can be difficult to punch through. I believe that this is one of the most challenging points of entry into social justice for cis white people, especially because it deals with privilege and the idea that one can have multiple political identities that makes life exponentially more challenging.
Hi Jacob!
Thank you for your blog post.
Your discussion of intersectionality was fascinating. With this year being the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, I was reminded that the suffrage fight was different for black and white women. In 1874, the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett ruled that US citizenship does not include the right to vote. If the ruling had gone the other way, than women (both black and white, as well as black men) could have claimed voting rights based on their citizenship. But the ruling made it so that states could put any restriction on voting they wanted, as long as it wasn’t race (per se). Even after the 19th Amendment, states could restrict black voters using “literacy” and “citizenship” tests they must pass before voting. In this example, not being able to address the total intersectionality, led to piece meal suffrage. Here’s an article: https://www.britannica.com/event/Minor-v-Happersett
Also, check out the PBS’ documentary, The Vote https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/vote/
Hi Jacob!
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I agree that while reading through this week’s readings I felt myself wanting to re-read what I had just read because of how interesting the concepts were. I liked the connection you were able to make about intersectionality between Crenshaw’s TEDtalk and Taylor’s reading. I also found myself particularly drawn to the concept of intersectionality. I think, especially in the society we live in today, intersectionality is a very important topic to talk about. There was a quote from Anna Julia Cooper that was brought up at the beginning of Taylor’s piece that I think is important to focus on; “The colored woman of to-day occupies a unique position in this country… she is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem, and is yet an unknown or an unacknowledged factor in both.” This quote shows the interlocking oppressions/intersectionality that black women struggle with every day. Before reading Taylor’s piece, I don’t think I necessarily understood or that black women are struggling with sex and race together. I think that I always thought these oppressions were being faced separately. My personal misunderstanding of intersectionality is just another reason why intersectionality is such an important topic to be taught and understood in today’s society. To answer your first question, I think it is so important that we don’t separate these battles of oppression. But, I also understand where you are coming from with your worries of how combining too many forms of oppression could have that negative effect on the oppressed… I think that sometimes too much oppression can make situations worse. Overall, I really enjoyed the topics and the questions you brought up through your blog post. I’m very interested to see where we can take these thoughts in class!
In response to the questions “do black people, civil rights organizations, and black rights movements need white voices and white members in order for racism to weaken? Does it make more sense for those organizations and movements to only be led and occupied by black people…? I would say yes. Yes, the movements needs the support of white people, and yes, the organizations and movements should be led by people of color.
As a white female taking several classes regarding race, gender, sex, and so on, I have often found myself feeling like I should apologize for being born white. I have struggled trying to find ways that I could help those facing oppression and feeling as if I have no right to interject. Yet I have learned from these courses that although I am different in some ways, I am also connected in other ways. I am white, but being a woman, I can understand obstacles females face on a daily basis. I am also part of the working class (considered poor if you look at my income level) and I have other non-heterosexual normative behaviors that I don’t think should be shared in this context. Nevertheless, I am part of an intersectionality community in which there are several forces out of my control at play. However, in the areas in which I am privileged, such as my race, education, and writing abilities, I am able to do what I can to help others who are more limited than myself.
I would not feel comfortable speaking for certain groups, but I would love to be able to join voices with others who are oppressed—even if my sources of oppression are different in nature. When reading Taylor, I felt her distaste for allowing white women working with women of color in the feminist struggle, primarily because of the whites inability to be non-racist, yet she does suggest that white women could help by stating, “eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do” (27). I feel like white women could offer a lot more support than just that, yet I do agree that it would be a great place to start.
Hi Jacob!
I really enjoyed reading your blog post and noticed that you touched on a bunch of important points here. I thought your question, “do black people, civil rights organizations, and black rights movements need white voices and white members in order for racism to weaken” was extremely important to encourage our class to critically think about how the term applies to the subject of race. To answer your question, I don’t think the black community “needs” white voices to speak on their behalf and to help decrease racism in our society. Since white people are born with white privilege, they don’t realize the extent of racism and how it truly effects the black community. Yeah, they can learn about it through stories, research and schooling, but they have never personally experienced racism themselves. In my opinion, I believe that black communities need to use their own voices to illustrate the real accounts of racism that they experience in their daily lives. By using their own voice, it shows some sort of authenticity to their race and what their race has experienced throughout the years, and still experiencing today. By using their own voices, they are able to speak on their own racist experiences they have encountered and show the true emotion that come from those experiences. Whereas a white voice would talk about someone in the black community’s experience and aren’t able to fully express the emotions that person had felt in the moment. Honestly, I think black and white voices need one another to show how we can change our society and weaken racism, as they work together to better our society and equally support and respect for one another throughout the process. While black voices speak about their individual accounts involving racism, white voices can be there to support and help spread the need for racism to weaken.