Kimberlé Crenshaw’s “The Urgency of Intersectionality” demonstrates the problem stemming from an idea she defined as “intersectionality.”  Intersectionality is the meeting point of two forms of discrimination that is overlooked and dismissed by society. In her TED Talk, Crenshaw when in depth on how black women are the primary victims of intersectionality, particularly in regards to police brutality and how their stories are told the least.

I was shocked to see people beginning to sit after hearing Tamir Rice’s and Freddie Gray’s names.  These young men have been significant cases of police brutality in our nation and it is a shame to see that their stories are still unheard of.  However, as Kimberlé Crenshaw continued to list the names of victims of police brutality, I found myself not recognizing names like Aura Rosser, and Meagan Hockaday.  Not knowing these names disappoints and shocks me as their lives and stories deserve to be recognized. The idea that the stories of black women who have been victims of police violence are untold even though they are equally as important is unacceptable.  In American society, black women are often and undeservingly overlooked. Their issues are unheard by the public. Despite several attempts to support black women such as solutions to black issues or women’s issues, none are tailored specifically to black women.  This lack of specificity sentences black women to become less than worthy to be heard and supported. The overlap of racial and gender discrimination has been a prominent issue in American society for decades. Unfortunately, not much has been done to resolve this.

This “intersectionality” proposed by Crenshaw, as she points out, not only impacts black women, but those who are apart of any minority group.  “As a consequence of intersectionality, intersections of race and gender, of heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, all of these social dynamics come together and create challenges that are sometimes quite unique.”  Black women, for decades have been prominent receivers of hatred and discrimination yet other versions of intersectionality exist that target other underrepresented groups. It is imperative that in an era where social consciousness is expanding, we recognize the detriment that comes from intersectionality.  As young leaders, it is our job to push our biases aside in our to create a fair and inclusive community, which will ultimately lead to our growth as a nation.

The video “The Urgency of Intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw talks about the phenomenon when someone is caught in the middle of multiple types of discrimination. She talks about the effects and the lack of justice that befalls those who find themselves in the middle of these issues. She says that this is a big problem and that this could have massive side effects. The first exercise that she does in the beginning, in my opinion, has a big impact on the viewer, as it helps to demonstrate just how extreme the effects of this phenomenon are. The exercise consists of people standing up and sitting back down when the name of the person is unknown to them. She starts out by naming the male victims of police brutality. After that, most of the crowd is still standing and then she moves on to the female victims and when she finishes, all but 4 people are still standing. When I saw this it made me realize what a huge problem this was, as I couldn’t name them either.
Next, she talks about why this issue is relevant and what causes this. She argues that the reason this type of phenomenon happens is because there lacks a frame of reference for these types of cases as they are prone to getting dismissed and forgotten. For this, she points to an example of this phenomenon when someone she knew didn’t get hired and that woman blamed it on race. However, the judge dismissed it because the company both employed women and black people and that based on this, she had no basis for the case. Furthermore, Crenshaw argues that while the company did hire black people and women, that the women that were hired were usually white and the black people that were usually hired were males and that the combination of these discriminations were very powerful in that decision.

In the video “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” Kimberle Crenshaw discusses the intersection of racism and sexism which often overlap in order to create different levels of social problems. She presents a speech where she describes the urgency of this issue. African American women are discriminated on a basis of race and sex. In order to solve this problem, we must recognize this issue. We must broaden the frame of discrimination to include women as Crenshaw describes this as a “framing issue.”

An interesting example she presents is the case of Emma DeGraffenried. She was double discriminated on a basis of race and sex when she was rejected by a local car manufacturing plant. The court quickly dismissed her case as they claim the plant hired both African Americans and women. However, the court failed to recognize how all African Americans working in the plant were men and all the women working in the plant were white. DeGraffenreid was quickly rejected because of the fact that she is both a women and an African American. In order to solve this issue, American society must recognize this issue and broaden its frame of discrimination to include African American women.

While delivering her speech Crenshaw uses slides to show images of African American women that have been victims of police brutality. This was a really effective action. By doing this, she indicates the relevance of this topic. Women are being murdered by police because they are being discriminated by race and sex. It shows the inhumanity of this issue. African American women are being killed and injured over the cruel actions of police and it is a shame that American society fails to have any knowledge about this issue and these women. In her presentation she makes eye contact with her audience, hand gestures, and has facial and vocal expression which all enhance her communication skills and effectiveness of her delivery.

Finally, she also interacts with her audience by conducting a survey in order to have an understanding of her audience’ knowledge of these women that are being murdered by the police. She also shows a video that includes some of the many women that were killed by the police and clips of police brutality against women in which she asked her audience to yell out the names of these women. She did this in order to bear witness to them, to let their names be heard and to being them to the light. SAY HER NAME!