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Powerless Defense
Intersectionality refers to how different kinds of inequity—racism, sexism, classism, and so on—intersect to produce more complex forms of oppression. The term was coined by feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Intersectionality Quotes in How to Be an Antiracist
The How to Be an Antiracist quotes below are all either spoken by Intersectionality or refer to Intersectionality. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 15: Sexuality Quotes
I gobbled up Audre Lorde, E. Patrick Johnson, bell hooks, Joan Morgan, Dwight McBride, Patricia Hill Collins, and Kimberlé Crenshaw like my life depended on it. My life did depend on it. I wanted to overcome my gender racism, my queer racism. But I had to be willing to do for Black women and queer Blacks what I had been doing for Black men and Black heterosexuals, which meant first of all learning more—and then defending them like my heroes had.
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In graduate school, as Kendi dedicated himself to understanding racism and sharpening his own vision of antiracism, he struggled to recognize and overcome his own sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Although his parents were not particularly prejudiced, he explains, most corners of American culture are by default. Accordingly, while growing up as a heterosexual cisgender man, Kendi idly drifted toward sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Until graduate school, he didn’t realize that this would affect his ability to effectively teach antiracism to diverse audiences or prevent him from forming meaningful relationships with people of other genders and sexualities. So he was fortunate Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur m
Chapter 16: Failure Quotes
To understand why racism lives is to understand the history of antiracist failure—why people have failed to create antiracist societies. To understand the racial history of failure is to understand failed solutions and strategies. To understand failed solutions and strategies is to understand their cradles: failed racial ideologies.
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After defining activism in terms of people’s success in changing policy—not ideas—Kendi goes into more detail about the role that ideas do play. Specifically, Kendi explains that mistaken ideas about race and racism prevent antiracist policies from succeeding: inaccurate definitions of key concepts and misunderstandings of history lead people to get stuck pursuing unsuccessful strategies. When Kendi argues that the battle between racist and antiracist ideas is only significant to the extent that it influences policy, he’s essentially explaining the reason why he wrote this book. To many readers, it might seem ironic that a professor has spent years studying Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit
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Intersectionality Term Timeline in How to Be an Antiracist
The timeline below shows where the term Intersectionality appears in How to Be an Antiracist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 14: Gender
...women, racism and sexism intertwine to create gendered racism. Kimberlé Crenshaw developed the concept of “intersectionality” to explain why antiracist movements must also fight sexism, and vice versa. Kendi offers some...
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Kendi quotes Kimberlé Crenshaw’s call for feminism and antiracism to address the intersections of gender and race. Black women built an activist movement around intersectionality and made it...
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Chapter 15: Sexuality
...men). Queer antiracism creates equity among race-sexualities—which, like race-genders or race-classes, are defined by the intersection of two identities. Queer racism leads to worse outcomes for same-sex Black couples, compared to...
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Chapter 16: Failure
...that it’s possible to be “not racist.” Ultimately, policy solutions to racism have to be intersectional, behaviorally and culturally antiracist, and anti-capitalist to be successful. Most solutions aren’t, because they’re based...
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Chapter 17: Success
...because of his upbringing. Kendi then recognized what antiracism requires: developing antiracist power, recognizing the intersections between racism and other forms of oppression, and finally replacing racist ideas and policies with...
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