‘These are not competing concerns.’ Photo: by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash
Guiding stars: Voz Faragher on intersectionality
‘We need an understanding of how different kinds of oppression intersect.’
As Quakers we hold a commitment to peace and equality. When we look at racism, we do so through this prism. But some Friends see through this prism differently. The truth may be experienced in different ways.
One way is to claim that ‘all lives matter’. But within this assertion lies a hidden harm. All lives do not matter. Some matter more than others; some seem to matter hardly at all.
The philosopher Judith Butler says that ‘One reason the chant “Black Lives Matter” is so important is that it states the obvious but the obvious has not yet been historically realized. So, it is a statement of outrage and a demand for equality… but also a chant that links the history of slavery, of debt peonage, segregation and a prison system geared toward the containment, neutralization and degradation of black lives… also a police system that… can take away a black life in a flash.’
It is a paradox that the debate about racism often begins and ends with questions about the destitution and oppression of white people. One oppression does not cancel out the other. Both are unjust systems of power. The existence of white destitution does not require us to minimise the impact of systematic racism. The belief that people of colour are inferior lives on. In What White People Can Do Next, Emma Dabiri writes: ‘Stop the vehement denial, especially to yourself, that you have racist beliefs. Race was invented to create racist.’ She goes on: ‘The UK has years of skin in the game, whether it is through the history of colonising the Americas, where the English really distinguished themselves through creating the architecture of race, the later colonising of Africa and India… or indeed take your pick from the Windrush scandal… the disproportionate effects of Covid-19, the fact that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth and labour, or just general racialised inequality.’
It is difficult to argue with any of this. The rub seems to come when exceptions are considered. This white wo/man is destitute. This black wo/man is not. I think we need an understanding of how different kinds of oppression intersect. I see intersectional concerns as stars with radiating rays. For example, Black Lives Matter has a core concern – a star in the centre – but radiating from it are concerns such as class, sex, disability, global warming, gender, animal welfare, age or children’s welfare etc. Each of the concerns are chosen by some as their preferred star. We may have more than one star depending on where we chose to focus. Each star lies in a cluster, amid the magnetic force of the other stars.
These concerns are not competing or conflicting. We can endeavour to reconcile their apparent oppositions by working together to counter injustice. It’s not a fight against one another, it’s a struggle which we are in together.
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