Amazon Vine is offering me a book titled Intersectionality: Key Concepts. I feel very insulted. Even when I was offered a book on opossum traps and “new gear for my deer-hunting adventure” I didn’t feel as misunderstood as I do now.
Misunderstood
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Clarissa's Blog 
No, you’re no redneck or hillbilly mama, cooking ‘possum stew for dinner
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I give up. What is intersectionality?
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A buzzword that very stupid people use.
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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
LEWIS CARROLL (Charles L. Dodgson), Through the Looking-Glass, first published in 1872.
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According to Wikipedia:
“Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is a term first coined in 1989 by American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age, nationality and other sectarian axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. The theory proposes that we should think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one’s identity. This framework can be used to understand how systemic injustice and social inequality occur on a multidimensional basis. Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society—such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and belief-based bigotry—do not act independently of each other. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination.”
It doesn’t sound stupid at all. At least in theory.
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“It doesn’t sound stupid at all. At least in theory”
But attempts to operationalize it tend to paralyze people as it makes it kind of impossible for people to priortize (essential in actually getting stuff done in the world).
I’m pretty sure it the idea was to advance progressive ideas among minority groups that were pretty conservative about any issues that weren’t their own.
For example, Blacks suffer from racial discrimination but homophobia and anti-semitism are deeply rooted in African American culture. Orthodox Jews tend to be xenophobic and racist, virtually all minority cultures in the US tend to be more sexist than the former (non-evangelical) protestant mainstream majority etc etc etc.
Intersecionality seems like an attempt to remedy that without anyone having to ever give up their victim status – which is why it doesn’t work as way to actually accomplish anything useful.
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