Kimberle Crenshaw Intersectionality Summary

The criminal justice system is a complex system riddled with injustice and inequality that specifically and systematically attacks black people. Intersectionality, as coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, is an exceedingly important concept that is vital to take into account when applying it to the criminal justice system. Intersectionality allows us to get to the root of each case and assess in depth what the case is truly driving at. Intersectionality draws a complete picture and letting us truly understand all that comes in to play in each case. Humans, similar to the criminal justice system, are complex beings. Generalizing them in certain groups, not allowing for their individuality to be taken into account is a problem the criminal justice system

has, and a problem that applying intersectionality to our systems can fix.
*Kimberlé Crenshaw is a black legal scholar who coined the term “intersectionality”.

Crenshaw explains the concept of intersectionality as a description of the way different types of oppression can be experienced by one person all at once. She uses the analogy of traffic at an intersection to explain intersectionality. Consider a situation where there is traffic in a four-way intersection where the traffic is coming from all four directions. Discrimination is each flow of traffic. If an accident happens in that intersection, it could be caused by cars traveling from any one of those directions or from all directions. Crenshaw’s central argument is that Black women in particular are discriminated against in ways that often do not fit neatly within the legal categories they are often put in and because of this legal and institutionalized framework, Black women are often rendered legally “invisible”. Crenshaw describes several discrimination-based lawsuits to illustrate how Black women’s complaints often fall between the cracks precisely because they are discriminated against both as women and as black persons. The ruling in one such case, DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, filed by five Black women in 1976, demonstrates this point

vividly.
The General Motors Corporation had never hired a Black woman for its workforce before 1964—the year the Civil Rights Act passed through Congress.

All of the Black women hired after 1970 lost their jobs fairly quickly, however, in mass layoffs during the 1973–75 recession. Such a sweeping loss of jobs among Black women led the plaintiffs to argue that seniority-based layoffs, guided by the principle “last hired-first fired,” discriminated against Black women workers at General Motors, extending past discriminatory practices by the company. Yet the court refused to allow the plaintiffs to combine sex-based and race-based discrimination into a single category of discrimination: The plaintiffs allege that they are suing on behalf of black women and that therefore this lawsuit attempts to combine two causes of action into a new special sub-category, namely, a combination of racial and sex-based discrimination…. The plaintiffs are clearly entitled to a remedy if they have been discriminated against. However, they should not be allowed to combine statutory remedies to create a new “super-remedy” which would give them relief beyond what the drafters of the relevant statutes intended. Thus, this lawsuit must be examined to see if it states a cause of action for race discrimination, sex discrimination, or alternatively either, but not a combination of

both.*
In its decision, the court soundly rejected the creation of “a new classification of ‘black women’ who would have greater standing than, for example, a black male. The prospect of the creation of new classes of protected minorities, governed only by the mathematical principles of permutation and combination, clearly raises the prospect of opening the hackneyed Pandora’s box.”6 Crenshaw observes of this ruling that “providing legal relief only when Black women show that their claims are based on race or on sex is analogous to calling an ambulance for the victim only after the driver responsible for the injuries is identified.”7 One of the biggest systems of social injustice in the U.S. today is the prison industry. Ever since President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” prison populations have been rising in proportion to the population of the country. And after new tough-on-crime policies were put in place by the Reagan and Clinton administrations, rates of incarceration spiked dramatically. Today, there are nearly 3 million prisoners in the United States, making it home to the largest prison population in the world. Many are aware of the disproportionate amount of people of color–particularly African Americans–who have been caught in this system of mass incarceration. But most do not understand the depth to which this white-supremacist oppression truly extends
Although slavery ended over 150 years ago, the exploitation of blacks still continued. Blacks, particularly in the Southern states, were arrested en masse for petty crimes like vagrancy or loitering. Once arrested, blacks were put to work doing essentially the same work as any slave used to do. And it should be noted that this practice still continues today, with the majority-black prison population being required to work–often for less than a dollar a day–in a system which profits big corporations linked to the prison industry. Another thing we need to be aware of is that although “…non-Black oppressed people in this country are both impacted by racism and domination, [they] simultaneously, BENEFIT from anti-black racism” (Garza 3). That is because the justice system was designed to target black people specifically. During the 1980s when President Reagan was at war with the cocaine industry, a new drug came on the market known as “crack” cocaine. It was made from the same material and just as illegally obtained. The difference was that while powder cocaine was expensive and considered a “sophisticated” (read “white”) drug, crack cocaine was much cheaper… and sold mainly in black communities. So even though powder cocaine was generating the most revenue for dealers, crack cocaine specifically was targeted in order to take what politicians called “super-predators” (a codename for black people accused of drug-related crimes) off the streets. In this fashion, blacks were persecuted to an acute degree, while other communities of color were targeted but were able to avoid being directly in the line of fire, at least during the 80s and 90s. Pointing out these issues of racial intersectional oppression should also lead us naturally to the issue of gender in the criminal justice system.
Kimberle Crenshaw talks about this specifically when she reveals that black men are more likely to be charged with rape than men of another race. She says that they are also likely to serve the most amount of time if the person they raped was a white woman, and the least amount of time if the person they raped was a black woman. Meanwhile, black women are the least likely to be believed when they are raped, and their rapists serve the least time in prison. This is an interesting intersectional issue because it would seem like society would have us believe that the rapes of black women are illegitimate (especially if the rapes are perpetrated by white men), and that white women are especially vulnerable to rape (especially if their rapists are black). This notion has originated despite the fact that the largest perpetrators of interracial rape throughout the U.S. have been white men against black women. Feminists and anti-racist activists should both take note of this intersection of oppression. Alicia Garza of Black Lives Matter sets an example with her statement, “We remain in active solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for their liberation and we know that our destinies are intertwined” (Garza 3). The movement to end the oppression of blacks and the movement to end the oppression of women must work together in order to help the individuals who belong to both identities.
Intersectional oppression does not stop when felons are released from prison–it follows them even after they have served their time. Black people, in particular, are much less likely to be hired for a job after they are released, making them more likely to return to crime in order to make money (in fact, many are left with no other choice). Blacks and Latinos are also much more likely to be stopped by the police for “suspicious behavior” than whites, even if a white person had been doing the same thing in the same neighborhood. This makes former prisoners who are people of color much more likely to either become homeless or be arrested once again, trapping them once more in the unjust criminal justice system. Another strike against a former prisoner could be their sexuality or gender orientation. Gay convicts can easily be fired or evicted if their boss/landlord finds their behavior is against their sensibilities. Transgender people are especially at risk if they present themselves with a different name or gender that is printed on their official documents. These individuals can be charged with fraud and tossed out on the street. In fact, transgender people make up the most disproportionate amount of the population who are homeless.
What I hope I am making apparent is that there are far too many individuals who experience disadvantages within the system differently due to a lack of acknowledgment for their individuality, and as activists, it would be a mistake to lump all affected groups into a one. As Garza puts it, “Progressive movements in the United States have made some unfortunate errors when they push for unity at the expense of really understanding the concrete differences in context, experience, and oppression” (Garza 3). The concept of intersectionality is an important tool for any activist, and the criminal justice system is just one of many places where it should be applied for frequently. I hope that in the future, activists representing different types of people are able to come together in order to support the many disadvantaged groups within the system, recognizing that their groups will often need to interact with each other in order to support all oppressed peoples so that no one falls through the cracks.