Kimberle Williams Crenshaw Quotes

"Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity."

"Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience."

"If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be."

"When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose."

"The way we imagine discrimination or disempowerment often is more complicated for people who are subjected to multiple forms of exclusion. The good news is that intersectionality provides us a way to see it."

"The better we understand how identities and power work together from one context to another, the less likely our movements for change are to fracture."

"We might have to broaden our scope of how we think about where women are vulnerable, because different things make different women vulnerable."

"The struggle against patriarchy and racism must be substantively robust and inextricably intertwined."

"The point of feminism is you shouldn't have to be a man to be treated with equal respect."

"Sexism isn't a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. It doesn't happen to black and white women the same way."

"School is now a place where punishment and discipline are prioritized over serving students and educating them. Any moment where a student falls outside scripted behavior becomes an opportunity for law enforcement to come in, criminalizing ordinary things people do every day."

"To never think about race means that it doesn't really shape your life, or more specifically, the race that you have is not a burden to you."

"A lot of people think that intersectionality is only about identity. But it's also about how race and gender are structured in particular workforces."

"Our democracy cannot be left in the hands of those who would rather watch or participate in a train wreck than stop it."

"Intersectionality is not easy. It's not as though the existing frameworks that we have - from our culture, our politics, or our law - automatically lead people to being conversant and literate in intersectionality."

"People with problems are not problem people."

"Intersectionality has given many advocates a way to frame their circumstances and to fight for their visibility and inclusion."

"Police violence against black women is very real."

"I think the O.J. Simpson trial was a revelation about the ongoing patterns of racial difference in American society."

"We are a society that has been structured from top to bottom by race. You don't get beyond that by deciding not to talk about it anymore. It will always come back; it will always reassert itself over and over again."

"When people talked about O.J. Simpson being race-neutral, that was a race card. It just meant we don't think of him as black. But race-neutral is just like flesh-tone Band-aids. It's not neutral; it's white."

"'Separate but unequal' didn't work in respect to race, it doesn't work in respect to gender, and it especially doesn't work when looking at the intersection of race and gender."

"When you ask people to name victims of police brutality, for the most part, nobody will give you a woman's name."

"Black women's intersectional experiences of racism and sexism have been a central but forgotten dynamic in the unfolding of feminist and antiracist agendas."

"At the core of conservative social policy about race are old ideas that link racial inequality to non-traditional family formation and its attendant culture of poverty."

"Suspension and expulsion are tied to a host of short- and long-term consequences. For some students, zero-tolerance policies in schools lead directly to involvement in the criminal justice system."

"Ideally, schools should be supportive environments for students. Unfortunately, zero-tolerance policies tend to funnel vulnerable students out of schools and into prisons, low-income jobs, and poverty."

"All too often, girls are ignored because their challenges aren't thought to be as serious as those faced by boys."

"We must begin to tell black women's stories because, without them, we cannot tell the story of black men, white men, white women, or anyone else in this country. The story of black women is critical because those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it."

"There are many, many different kinds of intersectional exclusions - not just black women but other women of color. Not just people of color, but people with disabilities. Immigrants. LGBTQ people. Indigenous people."