Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

“Having a monolithic view of feminism is suffocating.”

“School is now a place where punishment and discipline are prioritized over serving students and educating them. Any moment where a student falls outside scripted behavior becomes an opportunity for law enforcement to come in, criminalizing ordinary things people do every day.”

“In a true democracy, there has to be a line between deliberative debate and mob rule. Trump has crossed the line, and much of the media has exacerbated the problem by treating his remarks as entertainment, effectively encouraging his competition to do the same.”

“Black women's intersectional experiences of racism and sexism have been a central but forgotten dynamic in the unfolding of feminist and antiracist agendas.”

“I think that the same kind of openness and fluidity and willingness to interrogate power that we, as feminists, expect from men in alliance on questions of class should also be the expectation that women of colour can rely upon with our white feminist allies.”

“People with problems are not problem people.”

“Families, community leaders, and others must create the public will to address the challenges facing black girls and other girls of color as well by listening to them, valuing their experiences, and becoming actively involved in creating policies and innovative programs that promote their well-being.”

“If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.”

“Intersectionality has given many advocates a way to frame their circumstances and to fight for their visibility and inclusion.”

“A lot of people think that intersectionality is only about identity. But it's also about how race and gender are structured in particular workforces.”

“Antiracists must acknowledge that patriarchy has long been a weapon of racism and cannot sit comfortably in any politic of racial transformation.”

“When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose.”

“Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience.”

“Police violence against black women is very real.”

“I think the O.J. Simpson trial was a revelation about the ongoing patterns of racial difference in American society.”

“We are a society that has been structured from top to bottom by race. You don't get beyond that by deciding not to talk about it anymore. It will always come back; it will always reassert itself over and over again.”

“When you ask people to name victims of police brutality, for the most part, nobody will give you a woman's name.”

“Intersectionality is not easy. It's not as though the existing frameworks that we have - from our culture, our politics, or our law - automatically lead people to being conversant and literate in intersectionality.”

“All too often, girls are ignored because their challenges aren't thought to be as serious as those faced by boys.”

“Black girls are punished, many times violently so, for questioning and challenging authority, which is something that is often celebrated and encouraged as a sign of intelligence and critical thinking in white boys.”