Social equity movements are often fragmented processes. Abolition, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, marriage equality and others have all worked to combat intolerance with the common goal of moving towards true equality. But too often, changes are made in a specific category, such as race, while others, such as gender equality, stay the same. In 1989, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a civil rights advocate, recognized this and put forth a new approach for equality that recognizes a person’s unique identity, but instead of working separately towards goals, encourages a unity in their common fight: intersectionality.
Intersectionality is the theory that discrimination against different social categories — such as race, gender, sexuality and religion — all stems from the same place. It emphasizes that true equality for one category can be achieved only when there is equality for all categories.
UC Santa Cruz student and former GSA officer, Carson Blumen-Green identifies as being a part of the queer, transgender and Asian Pacific Islander community. He believes it is important that different minority groups acknowledge their common ground and says, “[Different minority] identities don’t exist in a vacuum; they all interact with each other. So if you’re looking at trying to dismantle oppression, you can’t just go at it from a point of view where you’re looking into solely one identity because different kinds of oppression all interact and play off of each other.”
Because of universal nature of intersectionality, one can advocate for a community even if they do not identify with it. Civil rights activist and former Aragon GSA president Sam Alavi identifies as a straight Middle Eastern woman, yet she has also been involved in advocacy for immigrants, African-Americans and the LGBTQ community. She finds that all of her work is unified by the question of access. “Low income people obviously don’t have [as much] access to higher education because it cost a lot of money to take it a SAT class, it costs a lot of money to apply to schools, it costs a lot of money to go to the school … LGBT people have that problem with access because a lot of them are bullied in high school and can’t focus on their schoolwork … so many of them don’t have access to higher education. Many people of color don’t have the resources to stay in college.”
At first glance, adversity can seem to isolate individuals, but in truth, the common experience of hardship can build a sense of unity. Striking similarities can be found in the adversities between junior Eden Vasquez, who is Hispanic and gay, and junior Juliet Bost, who is Asian and gay.
Vasquez talks about the effect of racist comments and slurs she is subjected to. “It got into my head that if everyone thinks I’m dumb, I might as well not try anymore. I regret that because I feel like I could have done better at school, if I didn’t let that get to me.”
Bost also experiences stereoypting in regards to her intelligence, but the specific misconceptions are different. She says, “I have suffered the discrimination being Asian and people saying, ‘You should be good at math,’ and, ‘Why aren’t you good at math?’”
While the stereotypes they are subjected to are different, Vasquez and Bost’s shared experiences with racism allow them to better empathize with each other.
Empathy helps when applying intersectionality. Bost describes, “There’s definitely a general empathy of someone that is bullied, regardless of who they are and what they stand for, but if you’re by yourself, you can form an understanding with each other because you know what it feels like to be put down, to be ostracized, to be side-eyed…”
However, what people say isn’t as memorable as feelings, and Bost realizes, “After you say something mean to somebody, they’re not going to remember what you said, they’re going to remember how they felt, so the feeling is a universal feeling and [one needs to] tap into it, and use it to connect with other people.”
With multiple groups working together, there’s an increase in support, which may have a direct impact on the change it encourages. Alavi talks about power in numbers when she says, “There is power in numbers when trying to pass bills because the legislature likes to vote for things that their constituents want. So, the more constituents who want a bill to pass that helps LGBT youth of color stay in school, the more likely it will be to pass. If I can get all the LGBT and all people of color activists to come together and tell the legislature that, they’re more likely to vote for the bill.
Alavi rejects the notion that intersectionality forces one to comply with all of another group’s ideas. With her intersectional mindset, Alavi works to extend her voice and contribute to other movements without losing her personal goals simultaneously strengthens both communities. “Maybe I can do something to help stop all the black women who were murdered in the last two years. I can do something to make sure that my community is talking about why a transgender black women suffers a lot more violence than transgender white women. I’ve done my little part, in my LGBT movement, to help in the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Alavi adds, “Intersectionality doesn’t mean by acknowledging all these different identities we have to make all of them change at once; [or that] I’m responsible for all of it.”
However, clashing views among groups have the potential to take away from the real task at hand. Blumen-Green acknowledges, “There can still be a lot of division within a marginalized group and I think part of it is disagreement on what really is important and what we want to address right now.”
Continuing on the subject of disagreements within minority communities, Blumen-Green says, “I think it’s important to realize the different positions people hold in terms of privilege and oppression, but it shouldn’t be like competition of who is more oppressed because that doesn’t really move things forward.”
Intersectional thinking strives to break down barriers between minorities, but it doesn’t oblige one to lose their identity in the process.
English teacher and GSA advisor Vince Bravo emphasizes the importance of retaining one’s sense of self when he recalls a recent interaction with a friend. “[Recently, I] was talking about racism in general with a friend he’s like, ‘I don’t see color and I love everyone the same,’” Bravo had to stop him and say, “‘As a gay man, [being gay] is part of my identity, and I see it. So I’d imagine for other people, like the African American community, any immigrant community, would want to step back and say, ‘What I am matters. It has to matter; it’s part of my identity, and so I want you to see it.’”
Blumen-Green believes in balancing one’s own needs with the understanding that everyone has unique ambitions. “You have to balance that [support] with recognizing that each group has specific needs and that there are distinct differences between the experiences and groups. I know a lot of rhetoric can say that we’re all human; we’re all the same, [but saying that] can erase specific aggressions and experiences in groups. So it’s balancing being understanding and relating to your own experience sometimes, but also recognizing [that other people have] a completely different actual experience and reality.”
Because of this, Blumen-Green recognizes the possibility that, because it attempts to encompass many beliefs and communities, intersectionality could dilute the goals of different equality movements. “If you look at pride parades, it’s centered more around the gay individuals and kind of leaving out the trans community … there is a desire to say that there is one, big group and people really need to talk about [all the issues], but I think if there’s a point where a group within that group is just being ignored, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for that group to break off.”
Intersectionality has its possible pitfalls, but is at its core works to help in realizing what the next step is on the road to equality. As Alavi says,“It can feel depressing and you might feel a little attacked. You might feel it’s personal, but honestly the most important thing to do is sit in that discomfort, listen to other people’s stories, understand what being me is, and what you can do with your position of power to help another community because when your community needs help, they’ll be there.”
