So I'm writing this dialogue where two characters are discussing intersectionality and I'm realizing again why I hate that word.

Getting everyone in the same room is only step one.

Like protesting, it's giving attention to (making folks look at...) a systemic problem. Intersectionality gets us to scientifically notice all the parts of the problem.

Honorable.

But only the start of the things that really need to happen to affect real change.

I hate that lots of people have defaulted to thinking that that's the thing that changes how we operate with each other...yes, I acknowledge it is the beginning, but it is only that. It is AFTER every one is there, in the same room, that the real work begins.

The next step is to blend and include.



Being together in a new way, where we all form something brand new...making us see MORE than just where we cross and how we are different... the blending of our diversity helps us start to see where we're all the same and how to create something different going forward in a way where we are ALL included.

‘But Tasha’, you may be asking me in your head, ‘how does each person in the intersectionality circle maintain their individuality/respective cultures, etc. if we all have the goal to blend and make something new? I mean, is this just another way to gradually appropriate us all into something we may not be able to recognize? Colonialism - capitalism - imperialism - gentrification and appropriation…I mean, come ON… goddammit!'

Well, yeah. But we can do it differently. Its simple…but not easy.

Did you know that making the effort to listen, the way that modern, socially-exposed, progressive folks do with each other, can allow us to respect other cultures while existing alongside them? We can ‘inter-section-nate’ and not inadvertently appropriate what didn’t originate with us, yet simultaneously join in with, enjoy and admire when invited the cultures of others in our social bowl.

Well, my thought is…let’s keep doing that.

That way - we continue in the PRACTICE of understanding those from which we are different, and we can make that effort to understand them, and THAT can be appreciated on both sides of the conversation.

The privileged can have more opportunities to see their blind spots.

The disadvantaged can hear, see, and most importantly FEEL that their justified complaints, injustices and resulting fears are handled with more than just the guilt of the perpetrators in mind…they would be handled with a new solution as the universal goal.

I see this as ultimately a thing that has three main parts:

1. THE PROTESTS - this ranges anywhere from secular insisting on a new label or language, all the way over to the other end of the spectrum - raising signs, singing and chanting in the streets, even taking a knee at an event during the habitual, traditional homage to the perpetrating power. It can feel great to be involved in bringing attention to a systemic thing in a world that desperately needs to see that thing obliterated once and for all. It can feel so good, in fact, that the guilt it can temporarily assuage can cause a blindness to the efforts needed toward actually creating that more inclusive space we say we all want - the one where pronouns and nontraditional ways of life are more normalized. The one where racism, sexism and classism won’t affect livelihoods. It can feel so good to get a dopamine hit of a large amount of attention and anger released (you know, because when you are white in America, you can have a fight with the police and live to see tomorrow…), and be so incredibly draining (especially for those who participate at-will and don’t have to live every day of their life under social threats) …we can be so tired from this that we can say ‘we put in the work to change the world today’ after such activities. THE DANGER: Lots of people…well-intentioned, dare I say it, ‘woke’ people, stop there. Sometimes they feel that’s all they can do anyway. Others actually know more needs to happen but can’t wrap their heads around the ‘what’ or the ‘how’ of the next steps because the problems they are fighting for aren’t ones they live under everyday. I don’t think it’s their fault that they feel they can stop here, but it can make the lazy-minded bandwagoners flock and the guilt-ridden and well-intentioned blindly privileged even lazier than they intended to be…blinded to where real changes occur that can make the lives of those they shouted in the streets, for those folks lives, better…

2. THE HARD-MIDDLE - Changing social conversations and whose included in them. Changing laws that affect the threatened and their everyday, operative lives. Changing how we create and redefine the word family and how we function within and around relationships, as we redefine them as well. Changing, not just how we refer to each other, but how we actually TREAT each other - everyday. These are the hard things that are easy to avoid. D’ya know why? The systemic issues at play are so systemic, they are usually invisible enough minute to minute to ignore it’s effects when convenient. And because the real ‘changing’ will involve triggering and dredging up unpleasant notions of the self, the ego, and dealing with our own shit as we try to see, hear and try to help solve the shits of others…the unknowns are so vast here…it’s easier to avoid this land of active social minefields and call it protecting the disadvantaged from further social harm. As an example: My white, academically privileged friends can demand the guy at the bar notice and acknowledge that I’m queer - but if I am so black and disadvantaged that my white friends are closer to changing laws than I can be at that time, the real work of helping me have a better life can be one we share of teaching me how to get the laws changed, or helping me find a way to change the laws that affect my life adversely, if I can’t navigate that land since I was never invited to it - and they’ve studied how it all works or have legacy family members who have the capability to get things pushed through - you know, like in slavery times (not that black and privileged professionals these days need their white friends help to change things ALL the time…but I think you follow my point here.) Just sayin…and even when this isn’t an option, at the very least, recognize my life didn’t get better with your knees on the floor in front of a crowd. THE DANGER: You just got them to notice my pain. Now what? And privileged protesting friend, please don’t forget - nothing changed for me. I’m still under threat after you fought with that policeman on the news. I’m appreciative only in the fact that I couldn’t do that like you did and go to work the next day. My next day is still different from yours. All my days are different from yours. Still. When can we put all of your privilege, knowledge and insistence to work in a way that changes that for all of us? Or is my job to just continue thanking you for YOUR protest of MY life’s issues? What would happen if I didn’t thank you? Who are you really protesting for?

3. THE CELEBRATIONS - Parades, fashion statements and celebrity award speeches. Diversity-Inclusion club potlucks at work. Pop up parties for POCs where white people are only supposed to be invited sparsely. There are so many examples of the way we publicly pat ourselves on the back for the PROTESTS and not the HARD MIDDLE…the hard parts still get skipped and go unnoticed or straight up avoided. The privileged AND the disadvantaged get to celebrate the protesting activities together - which can be an extension of the protest ‘dopamine high’ for the guilty and honestly, just confuse the hell out of the disadvantaged person still being treated like shit by the world the day after the parade. And, FYI, it’s not just the treatment that results in the disadvantaged having only hurt feelings…this treatment rips away the rights from those the privileged protested for. Laws didn’t change, but we got noticed…and now we throw a party to thank everyone for ‘showing up’, scared for what tomorrow might bring and realizing that we are more on our own than ever when the next shit we have to really deal with hits the next day’s fan. THE DANGER: Celebrations can cloud the issue. Love IS NOT all you need, and just because it IS the foundation of a world that we all want to exist soon, jumping from the PROTEST to the CELEBRATION without living through the shit that IS the HARD MIDDLE so things can start to shift for real…this will continue to brew resentments between the privileged and their disadvantaged friends and loved ones. It’s hard to see difficult truths through resentful eyes. Just ask that troubled married couple that avoided therapy when they sorely needed it and trot along resentful because friends and family around them say ‘love is all you need’ and ‘time will heal things’. Some love based celebrating can justify the hard-middle cop out - the real work never gets done and we wonder why these smart, woke people couldn’t make the smart moves together when and how they needed to? Time keeps on slipping…and our present becomes the future.

The Hard-Middle will earn us a new type of celebration.



Let’s say we get the point of all this and start trying to figure out how to be that councilperson of privilege that fights to change a community’s laws and operative expectations. Or we figure out a way to start normalizing and equalizing social conversations on families and relationships that look different from a privileged norm, so much so that we don’t concentrate on differences anymore, but focus on our sameness.

It’s an evolutionary leap from where we are today - even though today, we are closer to this type of change being possible than humankind has ever been. Free information and global reach has helped that. Protests has helped that. Celebrations have helped that.

And civil rights leaders marching on Washington until they were able to GO INTO the white house to discuss and affect ACTUAL law changes. And the Obamas knowing how to intelligently play the white house game.

Anger has its place. My professional, educated black friends that wear their natural hair to work in environments where that is unfortunately still a ‘thing’ are justifiably resentful of the other extreme celebrating and maintaining THEIR opinion…particularly the opinion that stops my friends equal opportunities for interviews, jobs, livelihoods and safe lives. My Trans friends have a struggle within a celebration everyday, until laws change to protect them. My gay and queer friends have specific life circumstances where it is just high time we normalized a new type of respect for them.

But LOVE has its place as well.

Imagine an existence that included a militant push for something past protesting and academic-labelling activism. If you are POC, queer or disadvantaged in a way that laws need to change to give you an equal shot in your world, that Hard-Middle is so worth the celebration.

It’s love pushing us all in the same direction. It’s love that has us fighting to speak the same language and to start by calling each other by the right thing. Love starts it all.

The love of our ‘sameness’ that makes the privileged blind see…that’s the key. Creating change from this can get us further, if making something brand new is the real goal.

The script on this is so ALIVE. I have a feeling that this is just part one of this discussion. There’s so much more to figure out.

Can you feel it too?

Here's the lady that coined the word, saying more about it: https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/