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 LGBTTQQIAAPÂ 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.
