Intersectionality

Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of cvil rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. Her work has been foundational in two fields of study that have come to be known by terms that she coined: critical race theory and intersectionality.

How would you describe the different facets of your identity? Do you identify as Hispanic and/or Latinx? A trans-man? A federal employee? A nurse? These aspects of our lives make up our identities and shape how we perceive the world, and in return, how the world perceives us as individuals.

Intersectionality is about capturing dynamics and converging patterns of advantage and disadvantage. Those are going to change from context to context. Our way of thinking about what discrimination looks like is flattened, and it says, race discrimination is the same for everyone.

The Atlanta spa shootings brought attention to a long history of hate against Asians and Asian Americans. But the shootings were also a tragedy at the intersection of gender, race and class. The horror of the event struck a chord for many people belonging to different demographic groups.