October 19, 2016 - 00:13
freshman year, i took a class called 'interdisciplines of gender and sexuality'. the topics ranged from performativity to labor to citizenship to disability to futurity... and one of these topics was intersectionality. in retrospect it makes sense because everything about the class felt very ~intro 100 level freshman-y~ but my main issue was the fact that we had a separate topic for intersectionality. of course everything about citizenship is tied to race and disability and futurity have roots in each other and and and
kimberle crenshaw coined the term intersectionality and has an esssay on 'demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex' where she details a Black feminist critique on feminist theory and antiracist politics. in one passage, she says,
"Consider first the definition of discrimination that seems to be operative in antidiscrimination law: Discrimination which is wrongful proceeds from the identification of a specific class or category; either a discriminator intentionally identifies this category, or a process is adopted which somehow disadvantages all members of this category. According to the dominant view, a discriminator treats all people within a race or sex category similarly."
through the dominant lens, sex and race discriminatin become defined as being privileged "but for" their sexual or racial characteristics. for example after the first presidential debate, my facebook news feed was filled with posts and memes counting the number of times trump had interrupted hillary while she was speaking. i saw a lot of "i'm no fan of hillary, BUT this really had me on her side" and "shoutout to every woman's every day at work". this defense cropped up not necessarily as a support for her but more of a universal cry for all women who can attest to what we witnessed on screen. however, what kind of ~victim~ is HRC? she's a white woman with proximity to power and capital within the frameworks of white supremacy. solidarity for HRC further helps her assimilate into these power structures, ones that Black and Brown woman have limited access to. thinking about this makes me feel queasy so i think that's all i have to say for now.