What Intersectionality Really Means for Movements: Prof Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Laura is joined this week by celebrated academic, organizer, and advocate Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who is perhaps best known for coining the term intersectionality.

In order to use this moment effectively and strategically to change culture, according to Crenshaw, we have to build movements that use genuine intersectional analysis to point out differences and commonalities.

Plus a look at the #SayHerName campaign, founded by Crenshaw and an F-word from Laura on why month-designations like Women's History Month aren't effective unless we also make a month to cross-examine the white capitalist cis het patriarchy.

[whitepantherthekid]

8:44, 15:30, 17:00 - great key points about the role of class in intersectionality!

[tammygibson]

I'm taking sociology 225 this semester. I finally understand intersectionality. Thanks Kimberly for all your hard work.

[xavierlemaire]

She talks about conscienceness, speaking, saying, demanding... What about acting? What do we do ? When and how do we oppose physically ? That's what I don't like in intersectionality. It's not radical enough. Not revolutionary at all. We need the black panther back. This is bourgeois movement.

[Highonfruitaprivilegedvegan]

Such a wonderful interview! Professor Crenshaw is so wise and Laura Flanders is a wonderful interviewer. I appreciate each episode so much. Thank you!

[fredjohnson]

And in just about 26:21 minutes interview is/was uploaded back in March 21, 2017.

[lindontilson]

I'm trying to give more time to intersectionality but this conversation is so obvious and devoid of insight

[frogman]

Kimberle Crenshaw's Intersectionality Theory does not take economics enough into account. This is why, I believe, Intersectionalists misinterpret the election of 2016. "Class" is not just another "identity", such as race, gender or sexual orientation. A misunderstanding of Class politics is dangerous today and actually empowers the neoliberal agenda in my opinion.

[withlove]

Even though I like Crenshaw, to me, intersectionality is somewhat banal, which is why I think it's caught on. Sure it's fairly easy to understand and has practical uses but saying that problems intersect and that we need to keep the margins in mind is as about as revealing as saying the sun is bright. There have been plenty of theorists who have known that their are different ways of experiencing the effects of oppression and that different sites of oppression cannot be neatly separated but that doesn't necessarily give us a revolutionary praxis to work from - here even Crenshaw seems to realize this when she talks about needing to develop a language - and it doesn't tell us anything much about the production/reproduction of exploitation or how and why these issues intersect or at what moment. What's a little frustrating here is Crenshaw only really addresses the most obvious and reductionist criticisms of intersectionality that are easily refutable, such as the myth of the 'white working class', as well as being on the charges of identity politics, which intersectionality does not refute and because of that often falls into the same problems of identitarianism. I can only assume she's refuting the conservative idea of idpol, not what idpol actually is.

When she quoted Tim Wise on the election about diminished overrepresentation omigod, I cringed. If that is the deepest class analysis we have then I highly doubt her conference really produced a nuanced autopsy of the election.

[andrekoen]

The Ultimate minority is the individual. The recognition of the individual is important either from society or through group recognition. The need for "I" to define myself must take into account that for many individuals in "minority" groups they have been defined by others as apart of their minority status. The act of self definition or self determination,  is an attempt to gain access to the visibility that majority culture members often take for granted.
 Intersectionality is an attempt to make visible the humanity that social and governmental structures have attempted to sideline through laws, policies and social norms. Examples would be FHA Redlining, Sodomy Laws and the Glass Ceiling.
 Age is not a social construct, but the meaning or importance that his given to "age" is constructed and reaffirmed by societies and governments. The same can be said about Race and Gender Roles or Identity. When people say things are social constructs, what I believe they are attempting to identify is the meaning that is applied to or derived from the social context to a concept like Race or Disability.
Interesctionality should be used a a data point to measure if organizational outcome meet organizational intentions.equity is an example. Women get paid on average $.76 to the $1 an a man makes. Add race to this equation and the table looks much different. If we add this inersectionality lens we can do a deeper dive that allows us to engage in better dialogue to isolate core issues and solutions. Governments around the globe have "given personhood" to individuals in majority groups more quickly than it has to other groups typically seen as minorities.
Intersectionality should be used to isolate those discrepancies in order to understand and create pathways for the individual to move towards competencies in the group as well as the greater social or government context.

[notimewaits]

I've watched quite of few of Crenshaw's talks by now. She is the source of of Intersectionality. If you find her hard to follow the reason might be because you're expecting a professor to speak. She, instead is speaking like a lawyer (which she is) --a prosecuting attorney on behalf of the plaintiff called Intersectionality. She speaks as a prosecuting attorney with opening and closing arguments against the defendant called The White Patriarchy.
She presents little evidence which does not mean there isn't any it's just that she presents, as stated, opening and closing arguments of a prosecuting attorney. That's her shtick and she's quite good at it. Don't expect information or education.

[kodajessica]

Wow. This video is especially poignant considering the recent events of the U.S. It's almost like Professor Crenshaw was predicting the future...

[MSJ_raptor]

Woman are much happier now. Feminism and this intersectionality... working wonders. Biden has also done so much good for women, and men who become woman ever more so.

[rasamaliazizi]

Intersectionality is a conscious filter.

[Jason-jisy]

Your ignorance, or rather ingratitude, is astounding with your closing segment.

You have been afforded the luxury to say whatever provocative rhetoric you wish by one of the safest, most humane societies that has ever been built by mankind, and yet you have the gall to flippantly dismiss the building of that very society--which has given you so much opportunity and the privilege that comes with it--with a single virtual wave of your hand.

And in doing so, throwing your father's, forefathers and foremother's hard work and suffering under the bus as you speed on by.

I'm not saying I disagree with everything you or your guest have said in this piece, quite the contrary, but your snarky stab at the very institutions that have given you so much strikes me as something a petulant teenager would make.

[deanjay]

The SayHerName part at the end of this video is very misleading. Most of the 11 women killed in 2016 whose names are listed were armed. Almost all were actively attacking police or aimed a gun at them before they were killed.

Having a few clearly bad shootings like Jessica Nelson-Williams in the list doesn't justify implying that every time a black woman is killed by police it is murder. Always double check the facts whenever you see one of these stories.

[danvalenti]

I’ve watched the entire thing and she still can’t explain intersectional analysis....what bullshit

[platoshadows]

Horrible interview. Crenshaw does not define intersectionality. She does not refute its divisiveness, and/or how it helped elect Trump.