intersectionality

(this post is my report back of the conversation that i had with bea and kamara)

- intersectionality-

-an intersection is where paths meet. seperate roads join together at an intersection. ie the intersection of class and race. 

-intersectionality is ofter talked about as an intertwining of identities and oppressions. to intertwine, things have to be separate first, only crossing sometimes. we reject this metaphor. this implies that a single black joins with a single woman and sometimes meets a single queer. 

-humans are not a bundle of intertwined identities. we are all that we are all at once. i am not black and queer and a woman and southern etc. but instead am something more like mymothergotphonecallsfromhercoworkersandmygrandpadidntwanttotalktomebutnowhevotesdemocraticandsometimesikissboysatpartiesbutidontknowifireallylikethemandimafraidthiswhiteboyisincapableoflovingmethewayineedandmaybeillgetconfederateflagjewlerylikethegirlsiwenttoschoolwithandmyfathersabusewasignoredandidonthavealotofblackfriendsandnobodyfromhometalkstomeanymoreandwearedifferentthantheotherpeopleonfoodstampsbecausemomwenttocollegebutthatseemskindabullshit (...) (an entire person)

-ie my life is happening and i am all of the things that i am, including things that i don't think of immedeately when asked about my identity. i am everything that i am all the time so there are no isolated identities. i do not know blackness without woman(?)ness and crushes on girls. my black does not simply cross with my lightskin and my hometown, it is defined by those things and created by those things. i do not know what black alone is because it doesn't exist; there is no singular black experience and i can only know my own. each individual nameable piece of my identity is a contact zone for all others. that is, each facet of identity is both changing and being changed by every other small bit of identity. 

-none of this means that we can never talk about specific facets of identity or the interplay between two. someimes that's just how we've got to work. it's hard to tackle the big picture, to work with the big picture. academia requires specificity. i am not suggesting that we never talk about black womanhood or queer disabled bodies or any other specific intersection of identity and thought. i am only suggesting a view of the big picture that i believe to be true and asking that we remember the fullness of human being when we chose to focus on specific identifiers.