“The Urgency of Intersectionality” Reflection – Jamirka De León
The moment Kimberlé Crenshaw started speaking, I was hooked. Instead of going straight into her speech she began by immediately engaging her audience. I found it very interesting that she asked all of them to stand up and started listing the names of the African Americans that have been killed by the police over the last two and a half years. She separated the names into gender, to show that the first half – men, were recognized more than the women who have died. She used a strategic way to introduce her point from the very beginning. Crenshaw explains that there are two topics that are presently being talked about often: police violence against African Americans and violence again women. The two issues have not been integrated and analyzed as a whole. Throughout her speech, she used hand gestures accordingly to go along with what she was saying, her call to action was clear, and although she was talking about a serious topic, she threw in a couple of jokes to lighten up the audience and keep them engaged.
One of the statements Crenshaw made that grabbed by attention was “Well, the answer is that this is a trickle-down approach to social injustice and many times it just doesn’t work. Without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all members of a targeted group, many will fall through the cracks of our movements, left to suffer in virtual isolation.” This is when I really strayed to understand what she was saying. I paused the video and started thinking, and then realized how many groups we seek justice for, but yet succeed at excluding certain people from those subject to the injustice, who in fact also need the attention; especially how we differentiate issues between men and women. As a person who’s interested in politics, Kimberlé Crenshaw really grabbed my attention. I wasn’t even there and she had my attention the entire time. I think her speech, maybe did not make a huge difference. But it most definitely left an impression and caught people’s attention.