Christopher C. – Response to “The Urgency of Intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw — Classic Editor

In the video “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” the orator Kimberle Crenshaw talks about the different amount of social problems many African American women go through. The cause for this is as Kimberle referred it to “intersectionality,” in which African American women are subjected to experience an overlap of race and gender. She discusses about this urgent issue and provides a real life scenario in which an African American women Emma DeGraffenreid whose claim was dismissed by a judge. Emma believed she was facing race and gender discrimination against the local car manufacturing plant. She was not hired because of her skin color and her gender, the judge who dismissed her claim did it purely because it is not completely true. However, it is known that most African Americans that were hired were men and the women that were hired was mostly white. Kimberle Crenshaw goes on by mentioning the main problem of this issue which is the “framing problem.” She explains how many people in our society fail to see race or gender discrimination which is as she explains “partial and distorting.”

Something that really caught my eye was when she started her speech with an exercise that involved her audience to stand up. She mentioned a variety of different names and the audience would either sit back down or stay standing if they recognized these names. Mostly everyone stayed standing when male African American names were mentioned, as soon as female names were mentioned only 4 people remained standing. By, doing this exercise her audience will realize how serious this issue is and how there should a change to this. As she said “if we can’t see a problem, then we can’t fix a problem.”

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Ali Husain
    The exercise that involved Kimberle Crenshaw's audience to stand up as she read aloud the names of African American people who suffered through police brutality was something that caught my eye as well. I personally have heard about some of the people's whose names were read but others I did not know of. I was in shock by the fact that so some of the people whose names I and many people did not recognise were females. I agree with Kimberle Crenshaw that this issue should be shared with others and people should recognise it, for a change to made. The quote you used "if we can’t see a problem, then we can’t fix a problem” is a great way to demonstrate that.
  2. Anahis Garcia
    Personally, I also found this intriguing the tactics she used for delivering her speech made it powerful, especially the expertise where she conducted the survey. Through watching the video I actually did the same as the audience and realized how this was indeed a reality. I had never heard of any of these woman or their cases before today. However, I was very familiar with these male cases. I do not think this. is limited to only what Crenshaw was discussing I believe as a whole men are still seen as dominant in our society which just increases the magnitude of how woman after overlooked especially African American woman which the African Americans are already discriminated against. Therefore, the fact that they are woman as well leaves them susceptible to this dual discrimination.

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