The Intersectionality Nobody Likes To Talk About
It's a useful concept, but we ignore intersections that aren't convenient
Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality has been one of the most influential academic theories in my lifetime. It arose, as many great theories do, out of an obvious point that the rest of us kept missing: that, for instance, a Black women not only may face discrimination because she is Black, or because she is a woman, but also because of the intersection of her race and gender. For instance, we can think of specific stereotypes of Black women that might result in employment discrimination. And the law, Crenshaw argued, needed to take that into account: for instance, in anti-discrimination suits, perhaps in affirmative action programs, and in other situations where race and/or gender are issues.
From this seed, a thousand flowers bloomed. Intersectional analysis became all the rage, with scholars and activists jumping all over each other to define specific hardships that members of multiple historically oppressed groups have faced. When, for instance, you hear the phrase “Black Trans Lives Matter”, that is an application of Crenshaw’s work. When combined with “standpoint epistemology”- the notion that oppressed people have a unique, often silenced perspective and should be listened to and centered when discussing the oppression they face, you have a powerful lens for viewing how oppression works in the real world.
If you think about this a second, of course, and you are somewhat cynical, you can identify a second reason such theories are attractive: they serve the coalition needs of the left. If an activist wants to give a shout out to both Blacks and trans people, who he sees as members of his coalition, intersectionality is just the ticket. And a fair amount of that is behind the popularity of the theory, because there are numerous “intersections” that we don’t talk about and that, indeed, will probably draw some strong social condemnation if people did talk about them.
I grew up in the Los Angeles area and have lived proximate to or in the city all my life, and Los Angeles is almost a laboratory of intersections among historically oppressed groups. And the way it plays out is often almost nothing like the solidarity and simplistic sloganeering of activists and some of their supporters in academia. A case in point is the relationship between Blacks and Koreans. For Exhibit A, let’s take a look at Ice Cube’s song, “Black Korea”, released on his second solo album after leaving N.W.A. A huge trigger warning on this- the lyrics are quite offensive. You can find them here.
Rap, of course, is the Black CNN, and Ice Cube is not an obscure figure in the genre, but one of the greatest and most successful rappers of all time. In other words, he was channeling what many Black residents of South Central Los Angeles felt about the Asian shopkeepers in their neighborhoods.
As for how Asian shopkeepers felt about Blacks, well, when a Korean grocer shot a 15 year old Black girl who had just paid for her orange juice (a crime for which the grocer was given a sentence of probation by the racist LA court system), many Koreans in LA argued that Black customers shoplifted from stores and that the grocer was just an old lady who made a mistake. And, of course, during the civil unrest in 1992 that followed the first Rodney King verdict, Koreans were photographed on the roofs of buildings with guns, seeking to protect their businesses in Koreatown.
This is intersectional just as much as the Black woman who faces special burdens due to the intersection of her race and gender, or the activist who centers Black trans women in his advocacy. But we don’t talk very much about this sort of intersection, because there are social media, journalism, and activist taboos about discussing things that are perceived as making members of minority groups look bad. And I use that word “perceived” deliberately: none of this is actually an indictment of any minority groups or any members of minority groups. It is simply a description of what happens when different groups, who both faced oppression and have collective narratives about how it impacted their lives and their communities, intersect and try to live together in a big city.
There are numerous such intersections: for instance, one reason OJ Simpson was acquitted (though obviously far from the only one) is that Black women jurors were uniquely hostile to the murder victim, because she was a white woman who “stole” a rich black celebrity from the community (and his first wife, who was Black): “[t]he defense's simulated jury tests had indicated that black females disliked Nicole Simpson--believing that she was irresponsibly milking money from a famous black man”. The prosecution’s jury consultant’s research disclosed the exact same thing.
The relationship between white women and Black women is a classic area for discussion of intersectionality. But the only way this topic ever seems to be discussed in public discourse is by ritual condemnation of the “Karens” who supposedly reenact the terrible history of white women falsely accusing Black men of rape when they “call the manager” to report the alleged transgressions of Blacks.
For what it’s worth, it is my understanding that Black people do discuss the relationship between Black women and white women quite a lot in their own spaces. But we don’t talk about it in the mainstream discourse, again, because of the taboo about saying anything that might be perceived as casting an aspersion on a historically oppressed group. If we were to really, truly do intersectionality theory, there is so, so much here: (1) the “Karen” thing and its historical roots are definitely part of it; (2) the fetishization of Black men’s sexual prowress by some white women; (3) the historic role of Black women, in a community where men are often stolen away by white oppression, internecine violence, and the criminal justice system, as caretakers and protectors of Black masculinity; (4) the fetishization of white women by Black men as a symbol of masculinity and transgression; (5) the frustration of Black women that the already limited supply of eligible, successful Black men (see (3)) is further depleted by white women and Black men getting together (see (4)); and (6) the inequality of social taboos, where Black women dating white men is stigmatized a lot more than the reverse.
This is a goldmine of scholarship! Seriously. I’m not sure all these things play a role, and if so, what roles they play. This is where you need a sociologist or social theorist, not a lawyer. But it’s clear that intersectionality has quite a lot to tell us about why Black and white women have the relationship they do, but to do that sort of work, you can’t have a taboo that says “we will never utter claims that could be read as casting aspersions on Black women”. If that’s the rule you live by, we can’t really discuss intersectionality.
And obviously, those are just two examples. Here are some others: (1) the relationship between racial and ethnic minorities and the LGBT community; (2) the relationship between racial and ethnic minority communities and undocumented immigrants; (3) the relationship between gays and trans people; (4) the relationship between Blacks and Jews; (5) the relationship between trans people and feminists; and (6) the relationship between Asians who lose college slots because of race-based affirmative action programs and other minority groups that benefit from them. In each of these situations, you see a fair amount of happy talk- i.e., claims that homophobia in the Black community are overstated, claims that minority groups don’t really oppose illegal immigration, claims that the LGBTQ+ umbrella is one big happy family, claims that anti-semitism in the Black community and racism in the Jewish community are overstated, claims that only a small number of TERF’s who aren’t really feminists oppose trans rights, and claims from Asians who did get into selective colleges that the claims of those who did not do not matter. That sort of happy talk suits activist goals of keeping a coalition together, but academics are supposed to be trying to discover the truth rather than keeping everyone on the left happy.
The thing I can say about this, from my epistemological standpoint, is that nobody who spends significant amount of time living in a diverse major city is actually unaware of these issues. That’s why I started with “Black Korea”- because that wasn’t some minor tiff between a few activists disputing a local issue, but rather one of the most famous rap stars in the world voicing a grievance that is commonly expressed in his community. The only way you don’t notice these things is if you are deliberately not paying attention. But if you actually want to further the cause of human relations and form lasting coalitions among diverse groups, you need to pay attention.