Table Of ContentS P M
OLIDARITY OLITICS FOR ILLENNIALS
The Politics of Intersectionality
Series Editors:
Ange-Marie Hancock, University of Southern California
Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London
Solidarity Politics for Millennials
Ange-Marie Hancock
Solidarity Politics for
Millennials
A Guide to Ending the Oppression
Olympics
Ange-Marie Hancock
SOLIDARITY POLITICS FOR MILLENNIALS
Copyright © Ange-Marie Hancock, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-10800-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-29087-1 ISBN 978-0-230-12013-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230120136
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hancock, Ange-Marie.
Solidarity politics for millennials : a guide to ending the oppression
olympics / Ange-Marie Hancock.
p. cm.—(Politics of intersectionality)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Generation Y—United States—Attitudes. 2. Generation Y—
Political activity—United States. I. Title. II. Series.
HQ799.7.H345 2011
320.973084(cid:2)2—dc22 2011007630
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For Charles R. and Theresa M. Hancock
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables ix
Series Introduction: The Politics of Intersectionality xi
1 Introduction: Why Geraldine Ferraro Needs to Meet Jay-Z 1
2 Intersectionality to the Rescue 33
3 From Public Service to Deep Political Solidarity 63
4 Solidarity in The Real World of Civil Rights,
Marriage Equality, and Proposition 8 101
5 Viva Exploradora Dora: Intersectionality’s
Contributions to Public Policy 149
Conclusion: A New Politics Manual for the
Twenty-First Century 181
Bibliography 187
Acknowledgments 199
Index 205
FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURES
1.1 Oppression Olympics 4
2.1 Content Intersectionality 39
2.2 Dynamic Content Intersectionality 44
2.3 Paradigm Intersectionality 50
3.1 Exercise 92
TABLES
2.1 Standards of Category Selection 40
3.1 10 Acts of Deep Political Solidarity 71
5.1 Public Identity of the Bull’s Eye: Race
of Subject and Profiling Experience 163
5.2 “Bull’s Eye” Racial Identity and Proposed
Policy Response 165
SERIES INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICS
OF INTERSECTIONALITY
T
he Politics of Intersectionality series builds on the longstanding
insights of intersectionality theory from a vast variety of disciplinary
perspectives. As a globally utilized analytical framework for under-
standing issues of social justice, Leslie McCall, Mary Hawkesworth,
and others argue that intersectionality is arguably the most important
theoretical contribution of women’s and gender studies to date.1 Indeed
the imprint of intersectional analysis can be easily found on innovations
in equality legislation, human rights, and development discourses.
The history of what is now called “intersectional thinking” is
long. In fact, prior to its mainstreaming, intersectionality analysis
was carried for many years mainly by black and other racialized
women who, from their situated gaze, perceived as absurd, not
just misleading, any attempt by feminists and others to homoge-
nize women’s situation, particularly in conceptualizing such situa-
tions as analogous to that of racialized others. As Brah and Phoenix
point out,2 many black feminists fulfilled significant roles in the
development of intersectional analysis, such as the Combahee River
Collective, the black lesbian feminist organization from Boston, who
pointed out the need of developing an integrated analysis and prac-
tice based upon the fact that major systems of oppression interlock
rather than operate separately. However, the term “intersectional-
ity” itself emerged nominally from the field of critical legal stud-
ies, where critical race feminist Kimberle Williams Crenshaw wrote
two pathbreaking articles, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of
Race and Sex: A Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist
Theory and Antiracist Politics”3 and “Mapping the Margins:
xii Series Introduction
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women
of Color.”4 At nearly the same time, social theorist Patricia Hill
Collins was preparing her landmark work, Black Feminist Thought:
Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment,5 which
characterized intersections of race, class, and gender as mutually
reinforcing sites of power relations.
Both Crenshaw and Collins gave the name “intersectionality”
to a far larger and more ethnically diverse trajectory of work, now
global in nature, that speaks truth to power sited differentially rather
than centralized in a single locus. What could also be called intersec-
tional analysis was in fact developing at roughly the same time among
European and postcolonial feminists, including, for example, Anthias
& Yuval-Davis,6 Brah,7 Essed,8 Ifekwunigwe,9 Lutz,10 Meekosha,11
and Min-ha.12 Indeed, it seems that, in a manner parallel to that
which Sandra Harding characterizes the evolution of standpoint
theory,13 intersectionality was an idea whose time had come precisely
because of the plethora of authors working independently across the
globe making vastly similar sets of claims. Around the world, those
interested in a more comprehensive and transformative approach to
social justice—whether sociologists, legal scholars, feminist theorists,
policy makers, or human rights advocates—have used the language
and tenets of intersectionality to more effectively articulate injustice
and advocate for positive social change.
The books in this series represent an interrogation of intersection-
ality at various levels of analysis. They unabashedly foreground the
politics of intersectionality in a way that is designed to both honor
the legacy of earlier scholarship and activism as well as push the
boundaries of intersectionality’s value to the academy and most im-
portantly to the world. We interpret the series title, The Politics of
Intersectionality, in two general ways:
First, we emphasize the politics of intersectionality, broadly con-
ceived; that is to say, we include debates among scholars regarding
the proper conceptualization and application of the term “inter-
sectionality” as part and parcel of the series’ intellectual project. Is
intersectionality a paradigm?14 Is intersectionality a normative polit-
ical (specifically feminist) project?15 Is it a method or epistemological
approach? Is it (merely) a concept with limited applicability beyond
multiply marginalized populations?16 Our own idiosyncratic answers
to these questions are far less important than the open dialogue we
seek by including them within the scholarly discourse generated by
the series.
