What is Intersectionality?
The term “intersectionality” was first coined in 1989 by American critical legal race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. A definition that encapsulates much of what this term means is as follows:
“Intersectionality promotes an understanding of human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations (e.g., race/ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, geography, age, disability/ability, migration status, religion). These interactions occur within a context of connected systems and structures of power (e.g., laws, policies, state governments and other political and economic unions, religious institutions, media). Through such processes, interdependent forms of privilege and oppression shaped by colonialism, imperialism, racism, homophobia, ableism and patriarchy are created.”
Intersectionality is essential in understanding the prominence of the P.I.C. because it allows us to understand how different aspects of one’s identity impact others’ perceptions of them. Concerning the Prison Industrial Complex, intersectionality is crucial because such aspects of identity, and more importantly, the intersections of those identities, are what result in the oppression and injustice being perpetuated by this institutional practice.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, in one of her many TED Talks on intersectionality, began by engaging the audience in an activity, prompting them to stand as she began to read a list of names. The challenge was that, for every name that an audience member did not recognize whatsoever, they were to take their seats to see how well the audience recognized these names of individuals. Crenshaw began by listing these names: Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. By the end of this first round, roughly half of the audience was still standing. Crenshaw continued: Michelle Cusseaux. Tanisha Anderson. Aura Rosser. Megan Hockaday. By the end of the second part of this activity, just about four audience members were still standing. Crenshaw revealed that the first half of the names read were likely easily recognized by audience members because they were all names of African-American men who had been killed by police within the past few years. However, Crenshaw points out that the only thing that differentiates the audience’s knowledge from the first half of names to the second half is gender, as the second half of names were of African-American women who had also been killed by police.
Crenshaw’s activity demonstrates the effects of intersectionality at work, and how intersectional identities result in populations and groups of people being underrepresented when discussing certain issues. In Crenshaw’s activity, she highlights how African-American men, in relation to police brutality, are targeted based on race by police and thus unjustly treated within the policing system. However, regarding media coverage to share and expose the public to their stories, these men are almost favored in an odd “privilege” simply because they are men. In contrast, the African-American women who are also targeted unfairly by police officers based on race are also oppressed through the intersection of their race and their gender.
“Activist opposition to the prison industrial complex has insisted on an understanding of the ways racist structures and assumptions facilitate the expansion of an extremely profitable prison system, in turn helping to reinforce racist social stratification. This racism is always gendered, and imprisonment practices that are conventionally considered to be "neutral"- such as sentencing, punishment regimes, and health care- differ in relation to the ways race, gender, and sexuality intersect”
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