In modern times, many groups have risen in fights against racism and discrimination in the community based on their ethnicity, sexuality and gender. A vast number of United States minorities’ especially ethnic minorities’ face discrimination and racism have fewer opportunities than their Caucasian counterparts (Crenshaw, 2016). However, there has been a miss conception between fights against racism and gender equality. It is assumed that by winning fights against racial equality, gender equality is as well achieved. This brings about the issue of intersectionality, which involves an analytical framework meant to create a better understanding of how an individual’s political and social aspects of identity combination create privileges and discrimination of different modes. Certain factors of disadvantage or advantage such as race, religion, gender, physical appearance, sex, class, sexuality and disability all combine to create intersection identities (Cooper, 2016). These social identities intersect in an overlapping manner such that they are either oppressing or empowering. For example, a wealthy and white female will get special care in a health facility compared to a poor black woman. Intersectionality is deeply rooted within black women, with some critics indicating that it excessively emphasizes black women. Although intersectionality does not address all problems arising from social identities, among other challenges, it creates an understanding of how the social identity differences affect some genders.
Kimberle Crenshaw using the landmarks essay of 1989, which included sex and race intersection demarginalization, was a black critique of a doctrine of antidiscrimination and antiracist politics and feminist theory. In both mapping and demarginalizing, Crenshaw staged interventions that are prolonged by exposing marginalization instantiations and sought to dismantle them operating in institutionalized discourses to know the legitimization of existing power (Cabardo, 2013). Crenshaw argues that a gender imbalance exists even at the racial level since black who have been unjustly murdered does so. However, the reaction in society is different when a black woman is unjustly violated or murdered as there are no demonstration, media attention, and publication compared to a men's case. Many women have succumbed to police brutality, but very few people know about them. In a presentation, a demonstration is made where names of brutally murdered women are called out where individuals familiar with the names sat down. However, there still people standing after many names had been called, indicating that some members are not aware of these heinous injustices against black women (Crenshaw, 2016). Kimberle uses an example of a woman who sues a motor production firm that refused to hire her. The woman tells the court that she failed to secure a job at the firm since she was a black woman. The court dismissed the cases on the basis that the firm employs blacks and women. However, the employed blacks were all men and women were. This indicates that women were excluded from the corporation proving discrimination at the gender level.
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Many people, including the laws, view intersection as one that will give black women double chances in life compared to all the other genders, including white and black men and Caucasian women. Through Crenshaw's ideology of intersection, it is evident that black women are disadvantaged without anyone making efforts to address these women's issues. Being a black woman in the United States, I have grown up in an environment where I’ve seen many injustices happen to women from my race. It has made me develop a perspective that women and especially black women, are minorities with fewer chances in life than their counterparts. I have been in sports through my high school life specializing in tennis, but when I joined college, my dream died as white females were given more chances than black women even if they are both equally talented. From employment to sports, so many instances of racial discrimination against black women have been seen portraying them as less able and intellectually incapable. Just as police brutality is an issue that has affected black men for decades, it has affected women leading to many innocent souls being lost. Women are victims of police brutality and domestic violence, with very few cases publicly known. Through the intersection, the differences in social identities between people can be balanced so that every member of society gets equal privileges. As many researchers against race and gender equalities suggest, such as Kelley Wiliams-Bolar and Priscilla suggest, every member of society should be protected from discrimination, violence, brutality, and victimization.
References
Carbado, Devon W. et al. 2013. " Intersectionality: Mapping the Movements of a Theory."Du Bois Review 10(2):303-312.
Cooper, B. (2016). Intersectionality. In The Oxford handbook of feminist theory .
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 2016. "The Urgency of Intersectionality [Streaming video file]."
December 07, 2016. YouTube: TED. Retrieved Month Day, Year
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o ).
