Summary Of Say Her Name By Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

Too often in United States society, a group of people is discriminated against in some form and by some mean. However, for several groups of people, they are discriminated against based on multiple factors that are uncontrollable. For example, African American boys and men are discriminated against in society based on prejudices that stem from racial inferiority, but there can be labels that overlap. Thus meaning, these African American boys and men can also fall subject to other labels such as, unmotivated which in turn, can lead to poverty. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is significant for coining the term intersectionality and her work consists primarily of feminist motives. Crenshaw has created the “Say Her Name” movement which focuses on African
(Crenshaw, 1989). Intersectionality is important to understand and accept a person’s various social identities to promote a true sense of equality and completely fulfill the rights protected by the Constitution of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The overlap of a person’s multiple social identities is common amongst many populations of people but is most commonly associated more with African Americans. Not enough are other groups of people considered when it comes to intersectionality thus making it difficult for these people to understand the term, the usage, nor its relevance. Intersectionality should be considered when creating United States social policy because it forces legislators to consider multiple groups of people and the various factors that affect these people, by doing this, it can better shape the system to create an equal opportunity for all of the United States
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw mentions a class action lawsuit case led by Emma DeGraffenreid and several other African American women. The group sued General Motors Company for discrimination on the premise of racial and gender discrimination. Crenshaw mentions the distribution of work-related opportunity by race and gender, “Blacks did one set of jobs and whites did another.” (Crenshaw, 2015). Usually, African American men were giving fairly equal opportunity to their white male counterparts in this line of work. However, for women, white women were usually given “better” jobs. Crenshaw’s quote leads to a fundamental understanding of the disparities in the workplace, “Neither the black jobs nor the women's jobs were appropriate for black women since they were neither male nor white.” (Crenshaw, 2015). Ultimately, DeGraffenreid and the several other women’s cases did not seek the justice it deserved. The court dismissed their claims because black women should not be able to combine their race and gender claims into one argument. This case proves the disparities in the United States workforce and further prove the active practice of blatantly ignoring intersectionality and African American women's’