4.14 Intersectionality and Contemporary Black Identity

What is Intersectionality?

Coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality describes how race, gender, class, sexuality, and other identities overlap to shape unique experiences of discrimination. Crenshaw argued Black women often face compounded oppression invisible to frameworks focused only on race OR gender, showing why single-axis analysis fails to capture their lived reality.

Black Feminism and Womanism

Organizations like the Combahee River Collective (1974) asserted Black women's liberation required addressing racism, sexism, and capitalism simultaneously. Alice Walker's concept of womanism centered Black women's experiences and activism distinct from mainstream feminism, emphasizing community, spirituality, and the wholeness of Black life beyond white feminist frameworks.

Contemporary Identity Debates

Modern movements like Black Lives Matter, co-founded by queer Black women, apply intersectional frameworks to activism, highlighting LGBTQ+ Black experiences, gender violence, and police brutality together. Debates continue over how class, sexuality, immigration status, and colorism diversify contemporary Black identity, challenging monolithic notions of Blackness.

Key terms

Intersectionality

A framework, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, describing how overlapping identities (race, gender, class, sexuality) create unique, compounded experiences of discrimination.

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Legal scholar who coined 'intersectionality' in 1989 to highlight how Black women face discrimination invisible to single-axis frameworks.

Combahee River Collective

1974 Black feminist organization arguing that liberation required addressing racism, sexism, and capitalism together.

Womanism

Term coined by Alice Walker centering Black women's experiences, culture, and spirituality distinct from mainstream feminism.

Black Lives Matter's intersectional approach

Co-founded by queer Black women, BLM addresses police violence alongside gender and LGBTQ+ issues within racial justice activism.

Try an AP-style question

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined "intersectionality" to describe…

1. a rule for traffic safety at crossings
2. a movement focused on a single issue
3. how overlapping identities compound bias
4. an economic theory about foreign trade