TED Talk: Intersectionality with Kimberlé Crenshaw

Study Notes

The speaker, Kimberlé Crenshaw, conducts an exercise where she names African Americans who have been killed by the police, and the audience is asked to sit down if they don't recognize the names.
The names that are recognized are mostly of black men, while the unrecognized names are mostly of black women.
This exercise has been conducted with various groups, including women's rights organizations, civil rights groups, professors, and members of Congress, and the result is consistently the same: low awareness of police violence against black women.

Communication experts suggest that when facts don't fit with available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their understanding of a problem.
The lack of frames for black women's experiences leads to their names and stories being forgotten, ignored, or overlooked by reporters, policymakers, and politicians.

A trickle-down approach to social justice, where issues affecting black people and women are addressed separately, often fails to address the specific experiences of black women.
Without frames that consider the intersection of multiple social justice issues, many individuals will fall through the cracks of social justice movements.

The term "intersectionality" was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to address the overlapping nature of social justice problems, such as racism and sexism.
The concept of intersectionality arose from Crenshaw's encounter with Emma DeGraffenried, an African-American woman who faced race and gender discrimination at a local car manufacturing plant.