The struggle against patriarchy and racism must be substantively robust and inextricably intertwined.
There are many, many different kinds of intersectional exclusions - not just black women but other women of color. Not just people of color, but people with disabilities. Immigrants. LGBTQ people. Indigenous people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the multifaceted nature of discrimination faced by various marginalized groups in society.
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw emphasizes the complexity of societal exclusions that affect not only black women but also a diverse array of marginalized groups including other women of color, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, and Indigenous peoples. Her words encourage us to recognize and address these intersecting inequalities, understanding that social justice requires an inclusive approach to advocacy and support.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on diversity and inclusion practices at work, this quote can be used to underline the importance of recognizing various dimensions of exclusion.
More from Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
All quotes →I have a wonderful, diverse, and young staff at the AAPF who pretty much work around the clock trying to figure out how we promote the idea that social justice requires us to be intersectional in our thinking and in our scope of vision.
If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.
We have to move back to the idea that education isn't about teaching people to bow to rigid rules. That's not what democracy is about.
Having a monolithic view of feminism is suffocating.
We must begin to tell black women's stories because, without them, we cannot tell the story of black men, white men, white women, or anyone else in this country. The story of black women is critical because those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
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I've always been bothered by systems that don't work for everybody. It doesn't mean we're all equal. I am not naive about that. But we should have a more inclusive society.
When you look at the wealth gap - the racial wealth gap - all of that is very much connected to housing.
Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.
In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.
Public housing officials are free to discriminate against you on the basis of criminal records, including arrest records. And so, you know, what you find is that even for these extremely minor offenses, people find themselves trapped in a permanent second-class status and struggling to survive.
Part of what our problem as blacks in America is that we don't claim that. Partly, you see, because of the linguistic environment in which we live.