This Black History Month, I wanted to write about a notable African American woman who has always inspired me to take the next step in examining privilege and understanding, that there is more to a person than what the eyes can see.
On top of being a Cornell and Harvard Law graduate, a professor of law for both Columbia and UCLA, an author of 26 books, and a deliverer of several magnificent Ted Talks, Kimberlé Crenshaw is an outstanding advocate for civil rights and coined the ever-important idea of intersectionality.
By Crenshaw’s definition, intersectionality is “a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects” and is simply the way that holding different identities forms the way oppression finds and affects you (or doesn’t) in life.
She often speaks on how being a person of color is hard enough, but adding the status of woman, or perhaps disabled, or poor, and so on, makes it significantly more difficult. She has centered her advocacy around women, especially in the criminal justice and law department, founding the #SayHerName movement and pointing out that many African American victims of violent crime are remembered by name and given more media attention if they are men, not women.
I take my privilege as a white person very seriously as an advocate, and someone who understands that the privilege I carry is exactly what can propel a movement and be a voice for the people who are often so wrongly ignored or spoken over. I of course don’t want to create my own message or speak on what I think about things, I only ever want to push their voices up and move their messages along WHEN they want it. Please don’t become uber white savior complex, that’s not what this is.
I am also a woman, which disadvantages me in some way, and that is why I urge those of you who can remind the white men in your lives who often hold the highest amounts of societal privilege that they can use it as a way of contributing to much-needed change.
Always remember that there are parts, and statuses, of an individual that we cannot always see. It is not always apparent that someone is under great financial duress or struggling with any disabilities that cannot be seen, and there are parts of people that aren’t simple surface-level parts of their identity.
Ask yourself today: What privileges do I hold? How can I use them for good?
If we aren’t intersectional, some of us, the most vulnerable, are going to fall through the cracks.
Kimberlé Crenshaw