2.2 Partie II, Chapitre II
Note47: Smith: Black legal scholar
Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term « intersectionality» in her
insightful 1989 essay, « Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex:
A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and
Antiracist Politics.» The concept of intersectionality is not an abstract
notion but a description of the way multiple oppressions are experienced.
Indeed, Crenshaw uses the following analogy, referring to a traffic
intersection, or crossroad, to concretize the concept: Consider an analogy to
traffic in an intersection, coming and going in all four directions.
Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one
direction, and it may flow in another. If an accident happens in an
intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions
and, sometimes, from all of them. Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because
she is in an intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or
race discrimination. . . . But it is not always easy to reconstruct an
accident: Sometimes the skid marks and the injuries simply indicate that they
occurred simultaneously, frustrating efforts to determine which driver caused
the harm. Crenshaw argues that Black women are discriminated against in ways
that often do not fit neatly within the legal categories of either «
racism» or « sexism»--but as a combination of both racism and
sexism. Yet the legal system has generally defined sexism as based upon an
unspoken reference to the injustices confronted by all (including white) women,
while defining racism to refer to those faced by all (including male) Blacks
and other people of color. This framework frequently renders Black women
legally « invisible» and without legal recourse. Since the times of
slavery, Black women have eloquently described the multiple oppressions of
race, class, and gender--referring to this concept as « interlocking
oppressions,» « simultaneous oppressions,» « double
jeopardy,» « triple jeopardy» or any number of descriptive
terms. Like most other Black feminists, Crenshaw emphasizes the importance of
Sojourner Truth's famous « Ain't I a Woman?» speech delivered to the
1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio: That man over there says that women
need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best
place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or
gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I
could have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head
me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man--when I
could get it--and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne
thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried
out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Crenshaw draws a parallel between Truth's experience with the white suffrage
movement and Black women's experience with modern feminism, arguing, «
When feminist theory and politics that claim to reflect women's experiences and
women's aspirations do not include or speak to Black women, Black women must
ask, « Ain't we women?» Crenshaw's political aims reach further than
addressing flaws in the legal system. She argues that Black women are
frequently absent from analyses of either gender oppression or racism, since
the former focuses primarily on the experiences of white women and the latter
on Black men. She seeks to challenge both feminist and antiracist theory and
practice that neglect to « accurately reflect the interaction of race and
gender,» arguing that « because the intersectional experience is
greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take
intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular
manner in which Black women are subordinated.» Crenshaw argues that a key
aspect of intersectionality lies in its recognition that multiple oppressions
are not each suffered separately but rather as a single, synthesized
experience. This has enormous significance at the very practical level of
movement building. While all women are oppressed as women, no movement can
claim to speak for all women unless it speaks for women who also face the
consequences of racism--which place women of color disproportionately in the
ranks of the working class and the poor. Race and class therefore must be
central to the project of women's liberation if it is to be meaningful to those
women who are most oppressed by the system. The widely accepted narrative of
the modern feminist movement is that it initially involved white women
beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who were later joined by women of
color following in their footsteps. But this narrative is factually incorrect.
Decades before the rise of the modern women's liberation movement, Black women
were organizing against their systematic rape at the hands of white racist men.
Women civil rights activists, including Rosa Parks, were part of a vocal
grassroots movement to defend Black women subject to racist sexual assaults--in
an intersection of oppression unique to Black women historically in the United
States.
Note 48: Garza: When you design an event /
campaign / et cetera based on the work of queer Black women, don't invite them
to participate in shaping it, but ask them to provide materials and ideas for
next steps for said event, that is racism in practice. It's also
hetero-patriarchal. Straight men, unintentionally or intentionally, have taken
the work of queer Black women and erased our contributions. Perhaps if we were
the charismatic Black men many are rallying around these days, it would have
been a different story, but being Black queer women in this society (and
apparently within these movements) tends to equal invisibility and non-
relevancy. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond
extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes. It goes beyond
the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities,
which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black,
keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters,
queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at
all. Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks,
disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all
Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been
marginalized within Black liberation movements. It is a tactic to (re)build the
Black liberation movement. When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about
the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and
dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence.
It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this
country-one half of all people in prisons or jails-is an act of state violence.
It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a
relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act
of state violence. Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a
hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously
fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence; the fact that 500,000
Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows
is state violence;.the fact that Black girls are used as negotiating chips
during times of conflict and war is state violence; Black folks living with
disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state-sponsored
Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality
defined by White supremacy is state violence. And the fact is that the lives of
Black people--not ALL people--exist within these conditions is consequence of
state violence.» In 2014, hetero-patriarchy and anti-Black racism within
our movement is real and felt. It's killing us and it's killing our potential
to build power for transformative social change. When you adopt the work of
queer women of color, don't name or recognize it, and promote it as if it has
no history of its own such actions are problematic. When I use Assata's
powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes
from, sharing about Assata's significance to the Black Liberation Movement,
what it's political purpose and message is, and why it's important in our
context.»
Note 49:Esposito: « Police in the United
States kill far more people than do police in other advanced industrial
democracies (13). While a sub- stantial body of evidence shows that people of
color, especially African Americans, are at greater risk for experiencing crim-
inal justice contact and police-involved harm than are whites (14-19), we lack
basic estimates of the prevalence of police- involved deaths, largely due to
the absence of definitive official data. Among all groups, black men and boys
face the highest life- time risk of being killed by police. Our models predict
that about 1 in 1,000 black men and boys will be killed by police over the life
course (96 [77, 120] per 100,000). Women's lifetime risk of being killed by
police is about 20 times lower than men's risk. Among women and girls, black
women's and American Indian/Alaska Native women's risk is highest; we expect
between 2.4 and 5.4 black women and girls to be killed by police over the life
course per 100,000 at current rates.
Between the ages of 25 y and 29 y, black men are killed by
police at a rate between 2.8 and 4.1 per 100,000. Women's risk of being killed
by police use of force is about an order of magnitude lower than men's risk at
all ages, as shown in Fig. 4. Between the ages of 25 y and 29 y, we estimate a
median mortality risk of 0.12 per 100,000 for black women. Our analysis
shows that the risk of being killed by police is jointly patterned by one's
race, gender, and age. Police violence is a leading cause of death for young
men, and young men of color face an exceptionally high risk of being killed by
police. Inequalities in risk are pronounced throughout the life course. This
study reinforces calls to treat police violence as a public health issue (1,
4).Rates of death have increased by as much as 50% since 2008. Also note that
while black people remain dispropor- tionately more likely than white people to
be killed by police, the share of white deaths has been increasing in recent
years, The meaning of race, age, and gender for police vio- lence emerges in
the interactions between how officers perceive an individual's identity and the
salience of these classifications for perceptions of criminality, belonging,
and dangerousness (1, 10, 25, 39). Future work should closely consider how
place, race, gender, age, social class, and disability intersectionality
structure exposure to violence (26).»
Note 50:Jackson: Black rebellion and protest,
though, have historically never been coupled with allegiance to American
democracy. Today, peaceful demonstrations and violent riots alike have erupted
across the country in response to police brutality and the killings of George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Yet the language used to refer to
protesters has included looters, thugs, and even claims that they are
un-American. The philosophy of force and violence to obtain freedom has long
been employed by white people and explicitly denied to black Americans. The
numerous slave rebellions led by Gabriel Prosser, Charles Deslondes, and Nat
Turner were all attempts to gain freedom with force. Throughout the 20th
century, black Americans armed themselves in the face of white mobs and
organized protection for their freedom marches. Accordingly, when George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor, and so many others were killed by police, black people and
their allies chose to rise up. Americans like to harken back to the
civil-rights era as a moment of nonviolence and civil disobedience. But that
movement was an orchestrated response to violence. Violence at the voting
booth. Violence at the lunch counter. Violence that bombed a church with four
little black girls inside. Violence that left a bloated black boy in an open
casket. Violence that left a black husband and father murdered in his driveway.
The movement ended with the violent death of Martin Luther King Jr. And his
death ignited riots in more than 100 cities.
Note 51: Buchanan: Four recent polls --
including one released this week by Civis Analytics, a data science firm that
works with businesses and Democratic campaigns -- suggest that about 15 million
to 26 million people in the United States have participated in demonstrations
over the death of George Floyd and others in recent weeks. Black Lives Matter
has been around since 2013, but there's been a big shift in public opinion
about the movement as well as broader support for recent protests. A deluge of
public support from organizations like the N.F.L. and NASCAR for Black Lives
Matter may have also encouraged supporters who typically would sit on the
sidelines to get involved. The protests may also be benefitting from a country
that is more conditioned to protesting. The adversarial stance that the Trump
administration has taken on issues like guns, climate change and immigration
has led to more protests than under any other presidency since the Cold War.
According to a poll from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation,
one in five Americans said that they had participated in a protest since the
start of the Trump administration, and 19 percent said they were new to
protesting. More than 40 percent of counties in the United States -- at least
1,360 -- have had a protest. Unlike with past Black Lives Matter protests,
nearly 95 percent of counties that had a protest recently are majority white,
and nearly three-quarters of the counties are more than 75 percent white.
According to the Civis Analytics poll, the movement appears to have attracted
protesters who are younger and wealthier. The age group with the largest share
of protesters was people under 35 and the income group with the largest share
of protesters was those earning more than $150,000. Half of those who said they
protested said that this was their first time getting involved with a form of
activism or demonstration. A majority said that they watched a video of police
violence toward protesters or the Black community within the last year. And of
those people, half said that it made them more supportive of the Black Lives
Matter movement.The protests are colliding with another watershed moment: the
country's most devastating pandemic in modern history. « With being home
and not being able to do as much, that might be amplifying something that is
already sort of critical, something that's already a powerful catalyst, and
that is the video,» said Daniel Q. Gillion, a professor at the University
of Pennsylvania who has written several books on protests and politics. «
If you aren't moved by the George Floyd video, you have nothing in you,»
he said. « And that catalyst can now be amplified by the fact that
individuals probably have more time to engage in protest activity.
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