Re: Intersectionality of Race and Poverty

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At this point, there are books, articles, youtube videos and probably even tiktoks about intersectionality. Here's the paper that coined the term. You, a math prof, can think of it like a multi-variable function: different variables go in (race, gender, religion, etc.), different oppressions come out.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 6:29 AM
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You can only have two things intersect, otherwise it makes my head hurt to interpret the regression coefficients


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 6:34 AM
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It has become a bit of a buzzword, but all intersectionality claims is that different social identities, and their overlap, affect how one experiences the world. E.g., a white woman and a Black woman are both women, but how "being a woman" is received/affected socially depends just as much on one's race as it does one's gender.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 6:45 AM
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I feel like intersectionality as a notion has peaked and is in decline. People are always saying on twitter stuff like "my gender isn't represented by white women!"


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 6:55 AM
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Mine isn't.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:02 AM
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Since the very first comment used an analogy, I'll keep it going and say intersectionality is like fuzzy set theory.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:11 AM
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I'm not actually confused on the concept. I'm saying that people often use it without fleshing out their ideas more fully, and here's my attempt to do so.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:14 AM
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4: Apparently it's all Russian trolls. I suppose the intersectionality of being Russian, a woman, and being a troll would show up here.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:16 AM
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(I realize it's not all Russian trolls, because the ideas planted take off among plenty of Americans. Still, I'm pissed.)


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:16 AM
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Intersectionality is like a matryoshka doll.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:22 AM
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A good chunk of people seem to be moving on from "we should be intersectional" to actually identifying specific ways this happens; sometimes even specific things we can do. For example, I recently learned that W.E.B. Du Bois was a landlord of decent holdings, and rent income underlay a number of big CRM figures. I hope we can now think about the implications of that without acting like it discredits them.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:27 AM
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I think that aligns with what I'm saying: how does this play out in specific situations and what are specific strategies for alleviating injustices associated with those situations?

I really wanted to talk about the specific intersection of race and poverty in this post, so maybe I should have titled the OP better.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:37 AM
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FTFM.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:37 AM
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Now I want to scrap the whole first paragraph.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 7:40 AM
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On the internet, nobody knows that you've aggressively edited post-publication.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 8:33 AM
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Anyway, I'll throw out a couple big picture thoughts on the subject:

ISTM that the big, practical takeaway from intersectionality is that what you hear from a speaker should be understood in terms of that speaker's intersections. IOW, when DuBois is talking about Blackness, that's the most salient fact about him--but bear in mind that he's a Black man, and gender matters a lot. But when he's talking economics, the landlord bit gains salience--he may not have class solidarity with a Kushner, but he's coming from a place that's distinct from 99% of the Black community. It's easy to be reductive about that, and I don't think it's a very sophisticated framework, but I do think it's a useful self-check and a path to critical thinking.

In general, intersectionality seems to have taken on a function of centering individuality over solidarity. Which is very American. But I think it's something that also ebbs and flows and has lots of manifestations over time.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 8:43 AM
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In general, intersectionality seems to have taken on a function of centering individuality over solidarity.

This is interesting. I have to think about this.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 8:48 AM
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I don't really meet people who talk about this stuff except here.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 9:19 AM
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I don't hear about "intersectionality" specifically much, but related issues come up often enough at my kid's school or parent groups, or at Cassandane's office. (Have I mentioned recently that shared workspaces get annoying?)


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 10:37 AM
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As one might expect, I teach about intersectionality *a lot* (multiple classes over multiple weeks) every semester. While it certainly can be used reductively (and is often used too shallowly), I think it continues to provide a useful lens for scholarship and activism. The definition I've been using in class lately is, "Intersectionality consists of an assemblage of ideas and practices that maintain that gender, race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, ability, and similar phenomena cannot be analytically understood in isolation from one another; instead, these constructs signal an intersecting constellation of power relationships that produce unequal material realities and distinctive social experiences for individuals and groups positioned within them."
--Patricia Hill Collins and Valerie Chep. 2013. "Intersectionality," The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics, 58-59.

In teaching, I highlight three particular aspects of this definition: that these phenomena are inseparable, that we're talking not just about identity labels but about power relationships, and that these relationships lead to unequal outcomes.

While the term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 80s, the underlying idea of the simultaneity of oppressions can be traced back to earlier figures such as Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) and through the famous statement by the Combahee River Collective (1977). (On the CRC, check out https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/until-black-women-are-free-none-of-us-will-be-free.)


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 12:23 PM
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Here's a quick and simple example of how an intersectional lens as Crenshaw conceives of it could play out in Heebie's example of racial/ethnic diversity in AP classes:
* There's a goal to increase the number of Hispanic students taking AP classes.
* In crafting policies and practices to meet that goal, planners consider that "Hispanic students" are not a monolithic category and that strategies that target Hispanic men might not be successful for women, and so forth. They might also recognize that Hispanic students in the district are more likely to experience financial barriers to participation, or to have parents who didn't attend college, and specifically address those issues as well. It could also be important to consider whether colorism plays a role in which Hispanic students are encouraged to take AP classes.
* Evaluation of the success of these efforts would include not only raw numbers of Hispanic students taking AP classes, but would also look at whether participation among the target group is limited by gender, class, nationality, first language, etc.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 12:49 PM
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Anna Julia Cooper lived many years. She was only married for two of those years. (Also: there are interesting discussions about what we'd call intersectionality--well, maybe not Moby, because he's racist and sexist--during the debates over crafting, passing, and ratifying the 15th Amendment. Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had worked closely together across many years, struggled to remain civil to each other, and they mostly managed it.)


Posted by: von wafer | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 2:41 PM
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I just can't bill for intersectionality.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 2:45 PM
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22: One of the main topics of my class on Wednesday was race and racism among US suffragists. There's some nice discussion of the issue in the recent PBS documentary, The Vote.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 3:57 PM
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22 and 24: my great, great, great grandmother after whom I was named was very active in one of the female anti-slavery societies.

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:2z110c774. I have a hard time reading the handwriting digitally.

I don't know much about these groups but would love to learn more. But, it sounds like at least some of these groups excluded black women. Are there any good histories of these female anti slavery organizations?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 4:39 PM
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Maybe they were mad that black men in less assholey states would get to vote 55 years before they did.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-22-22 4:46 PM
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I'm finishing it kind of disconcerting that the current Chancellor of the Rxchequer was in my Attic orators class in college as a postgraduate fellow, He seemed like a nice and decent person at the time. He did appreciate tha conservative philological focus of Harvard's Ckassucs department, but I never saw that as corresponding with conservative political positions in any of my professors.

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Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 4:22 AM
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Maybe he would have been nicer if the class were in the main part of the building?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 4:51 AM
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Well, you know those Attic orators, they're all just talent for hire.

Somehow in the same sphere, NMM to Hilary Mantel. This is a sad one, 70 is too soon.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:25 AM
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LK - 70 is way too soon.

But also, it wasn't completely off topic, because he's black, Ghanaian and an Old Etonian.

And I see that I can't type on my iPad


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:41 AM
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I had interviews for 2 different health policy/ care transformation jobs at the same organization. One of them was written in a very generic way, so I didn't realize that the program they wanted support with was the program to provide black doulas to black birthing people, and I was only told this about 1/3 of the way through. The HR screening on the phone didn't mention that. The one working on the black doula project was the 2nd interview, and it felt very pro forma compared to the other one. I felt really uncomfortable that I was being interviewed by a white manager, a white colleague and one very junior black woman. I had the distinct feeling that they had wanted a black woman and that they knew from their colleagues that I'm not black. I think they should hire someone black for that role! They are trying too model equity in their staff. I just wish they had written something in the job description that signalled this in advance, like "Although other areas may be supported as needed, the Associate's primary responsibility would be managing a project on black maternal outcomes. Individuals from underrepresented groups encouraged to apply." I have seen such job descriptions, and I wouldn't have applied if they had put it that way, because I would have had a better sense of what they were looking for.

Feeling quite dejected, because I really need to leave my current work environment.

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Posted by: Abigail Adams | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 8:03 AM
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Best wishes. Job hunting is the worst.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 8:13 AM
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Good luck with the job hunt, Abigail, and hopefully they won't keep making the same mistake with other candidates.

27: I totally thought "Chancellor of the Rxchequer" was some complex wordplay referring to possibly the head of the FDA?


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 9:56 AM
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Fun fact I recently learned about the Exchequer: not only does the term come from the checkered cloth that covered the table where officials conducted public financial transactions in medieval England, but the checkered pattern wasn't merely decorative; they used the checks to do the financial calculations, sort of like an abacus. Feudal obligations were complicated and there was a lot of math! Very clever solution.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 11:09 AM
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I learned that even more recently than you.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 11:12 AM
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29. Really too soon. I saw this on twitter:

Hilary Mantel, Rules for Writing Love Letters:

1 No photocopies.

2 It is considered bad form to enclose folding money. Money-off coupons are all right.

3 No verse. Your own would be embarrassing. You could quote, but do you trust your taste? Most love poetry is covert metrical bullying with a clear end in view. You might as well send condoms.

4 Trust the postman. Do not get her out of bed for a signature. A courier service looks a bit needy. Any accompanying gifts should be valuable but compact: that is, nothing that will need help to carry to the pawnshop.

5 Don't draw hearts at the bottom. Henry VIII used to do that, and look how his affairs ended up.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 12:52 PM
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36.5: I immediately googled "Henry VIII" "love letters" and did an image search -- but I'm not finding any hearts!

"wishing my self (specially an Evening) in my Sweethearts Armes whose pritty Duckys I trust shortly to kysse."

The footnote informs us that the "Duckys" are breasts.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 1:02 PM
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36.5: Upon reflection, it's funnier if Hilary Mantel just made this up, so that fools like me would go looking for Henry VIII's hand-drawn hearts.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 1:21 PM
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Mailing condoms is deprecated?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 1:24 PM
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Is it because you don't know if they've got heated enough in transit to denature?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 1:25 PM
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37.last: Because they both look good floating on the surface of a pond.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 1:29 PM
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37. The letters were digitized by the Vatican Library! You can see them here:

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.3731.pt.A

If you download the page labeled "5r" and zoom into the signature, you can see that Henry wrote Anne Boleyn's initials encircled in a little heart. ❤


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 6:34 PM
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Were they keeping evidence of love as a way to block an annulment?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 6:53 PM
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If they were it didn't work; H annulled the marriage before he had her killed.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:02 PM
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41. Because they both have crispy skin and taste great with plum sauce.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:09 PM
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Way to make it weird.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:19 PM
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||

Timothy Burke is asking for advice, and perhaps someone on unfogged has useful information:

[I have written] a work of political theory in a non-academic, non-specialist vein, intended for general audiences. It combines a fairly conventional critique of liberalism to a concern about a number of major crises facing the nation-state as an institution. The book then segues into a deeply and deliberately impossible utopian thought-experiment intended to catalyze an imagination of a world beyond liberalism and the nation-state. In the last part of the manuscript, I use the thought-experiment to argue that in our current real world, we at least can no longer accept a series of complacent tropes associated with contemporary mainstream liberalism, most urgently the proposition that we should learn to build bridges across partisan political divides or seek to reverse the "big sort" and embrace living alongside people very unlike ourselves.

My question for all of you is pretty basic: how should I go about getting that kind of manuscript published? ...

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Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:25 PM
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Does "catalyze an imagination of a world beyond liberalism and the nation-state" mean it's got wizards?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 7:56 PM
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But I think he should look for an agent. I don't know any, but I'm pretty certain that if you have a wizard it's a different agent than if you don't.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 8:15 PM
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Yes, he should look for an agent if he's looking to get this published by a trade press, which it sounds like he is.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-23-22 8:23 PM
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My advice would be: do not write that book, particularly not in the style I associate with Burke. But now that it's written, the best thing to do, if he's hoping to reach a broad audience is, as others have said, to see if an agent is interested in repping it.


Posted by: von wafer | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 7:24 AM
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You wrote books. That's pressure. You're part of the problem.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 7:34 AM
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51: oh, lord, yes to 51.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 9:07 AM
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This kind of negativity about long written things is why I'm still ABD.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 9:59 AM
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54: I guess I'm the opposite- I'm always encouraging people (specifically my mom and my stepdaughter)to write a memoir. So far, they stubbornly refuse.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 10:26 AM
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42: Neat. What is the line of text those initials are buried in?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 10:31 AM
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Quite ironic that those letters are in the Vatican Library.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 11:06 AM
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Also interesting that most of them seem to be written in French.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 11:09 AM
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The quote in 37 is on page 15r, btw.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 11:11 AM
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58: I think the English royalty were always French until they became German.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 11:36 AM
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42.3: I thought you were probably just having fun with me too, but now I actually see the "AB" inside of a heart -- I mean, I guess that's what it is. Thanks!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 11:41 AM
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60: Mostly, but the Tudors were actually Welsh.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 6:29 PM
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What's the Welsh for Duckys?


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 7:19 PM
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Ddwchys.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 7:22 PM
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Heh.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-24-22 7:23 PM
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60 Except the guy who got his head cut off, who was Scottish and Danish.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-25-22 11:32 AM
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And the Stuarts Scots, no?


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: “Pause endlessly, then go in.” (9) | Link to this comment | 09-25-22 11:43 AM
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67 Yes, but ChuckOne's mom was a Danish princess. JimOne's maternal gramdma was French nobility. His other grandma was a descendant of some Scots but also Henry VII (Tudor). As was his dad, through the same daughter of Henry but a different husband.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-25-22 4:13 PM
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Also, ChuckOne was married to the sister of LouisThirteen, so the Scottish heritage of his kids (ChuckTwo, Jim Two, Molly the ma of BillThree) was pretty damn diluted.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-26-22 3:46 AM
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belatedly, when framing intersectionality for math nerds (heebie, mobes, arguably myself) PDEs are where I go. E.g., the climb from poor to rich isn't the same shape, depending on where you started in the other dimensions.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 09-27-22 3:35 PM
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