Kimberle Crenshaw, who is known for her advocacy in black feminism, (The African American Policy Forum, n.d) coined the term intersectionality. Crenshaw defines intersectionality as a metaphor to understand the way social dynamics come together and create challenges for certain individuals. Crenshaws encounter with a women named Emma Degraffenreid is what led her to create the term intersectionality. Emma Degraffenreid was a woman who was denied employment at a company which she believed was due to her being African American and a woman. This case was brought to court and the judge stated that this company did in fact hire African American and women employees.
What was not understood was that the company may have hired African American individuals and women, but they did not hire African American women. The African American employees were men and the women employees were white. The judge may have looked at Degriffenreids case differently if there was a term that explains how Degriffenreids identities intersected with another creating double discrimination.
According to Crenshaw, there are many social justice problems, for example, racism and sexism that are overlapping which creates more than one social justice problem. Crenshaw stated that the creation of the term intersectionality has allowed individuals to understand how more than one aspect of an individual’s identity can cause them to face multiple different challenges. Crenshaw stated at the beginning of the video that African American women are being victimized by police for being not only a woman but also African American. This is a perfect example of how intersectionality works, using an individual’s multiple identities to discriminate them.
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Crenshaws intersectional analysis allows individuals to understand why we do not hear about police violence against Black women in Canada in the media. Issues pertaining to violence against African American and against women are often seen in the media but never the violence against African American women. These stories do not gain the attention from the media because as stated by Crenshaw, “Communication experts tell us that when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem”. Crenshaw goes onto tell us that there are no frames that see the injustice that all members of a targeted group face, in this case the violence against African American women. There are only frames that allow us to see the violence that African American men or women of other races face by police.
