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Last night, I was surfing the Net, when my good friend of the ethers
Steve Shives was having an extended conversation with his pal Crocoduck. Well, they were bantering back and forth, when Steve used a word which made me pause:
intersectionality. He was arguing that rather than putting the people around the feminist campfire and another around the atheist campfire, they should be brought together..
Now, about Shives' remarks, I see good and bad in them. Granted, the majority of feminists go hand-in-hand with the atheists, but what about those who are either devout, or those who are simply uncertain? A good example of this would be
Malala Yousafzai. Does she get kicked to the curb (along with her Nobel medal) simply because of her belief in Islam?
Then the next day came along. It's fascinating when a particular word comes along and reminds you. This time it was through
How 4 Black Lives Matter activists handle queerness and trans issues. This was a rather long essay, an interview with Kleaver Cruz, Elle Hearns, Arielle Newton and Kei Williams. What struck me was how this most ingenious of words,
intersectionality, came through on such diverse essays.
Deron Dalton uses it in their introduction, as well as Elle Hearns.
Oddly enough, the one place where I saw intersectionality most at force was at
Liberty University. (Yeah, that's the one where Jerry Falwell made his name. Oy.) On this morning though,
Bernie Sanders, as left as left can be - in the House or Senate - stood at Liberty's podium. In his opening paragraph, he made clear the differences the two of them would face, abortion and gay rights. But then he got on with those areas that they
would agree, namely the stilted state of our economy. Now, could you imagine the
Occupy movement standing arm-in-arm with Liberty University students?
It's not as farfetched as you might think.
What was fascinating was watching the opening five minutes of Bernie's speech. My rough estimate would be 10 to 25 percent gave Bernie a warm welcome. But this wasn't merely polite applause. This was raucous cheering. The loudest cheering was equal rights for women.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
I don't think the men quite got it.
Clearly, the fault lines were being drawn, mainly between the thirty and below and those who are forty and above. Liberty faculty are scratching their heads. It's not that the Bible doesn't play a central part in their lives. It clearly does. It's just that they are no longer looking at Jesus as a hectoring figure, a sheep-or-goats dichotomy (mainly
Revelation), to looking -
closely - at what he actually said and did with his life. (Mainly,
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke, and to a lesser extent
John) In other words,
Jack Chick's screeds need apply no longer.
Now, looking at me through the ethers as you do, you have no way of seeing me. Well, knowing me as well as I can, I am mainly white. (I say "mainly" because my grandmother told a story about a Kickapoo princess marrying a white ancestor, but without evidence, it will remain the stuff of legend.) But intersectionalities have their way of creeping in, don't they?
Yeah, I'm a white woman, but I'm a white
transgender woman. Also, at age 39, I experienced a stroke which essentially left my right limbs severely compromised. (No tears, please) I get around in a wheelchair quite nicely.
I remain quite fascinated by intersectionalities. And those that remain, they have gone from an intrinsic part of my being (mainly my parents, but especially my maternal grandmother) to a useless appendage. Eh, so I'm white. Big fat fucking deal.
And isn't that what humanity is all about?
Cheers,
Emily
