KIMBERLE CRENSHAW’S CONCEPT OF INTERSECTIONALITY

Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality is considered to have transformed what was formerly seen as isolated and individual within the discourse of identity-based politics. It denotes the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the many dimensions of a black women’s experience. The premise is: many experiences black women face cannot be considered within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination. Rather, the intersection of racism and sexism factors into black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured by simply looking at the single dimensions of race or gender in those experiences separately. 

Essentially, intersectionality seeks to demonstrate the variations within race and gender and gives attention to subjects whose identities contest race-or-gender categorizations. In so doing, it centers the experiences of subjects whose voices have been ignored. This significantly contributes to and enables a more robust analysis of cultural sites that involve both race and gender.

NEW INSIGHTS FROM THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN INTELLECTUALS

African intellectuals like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Toya Soga and Steve Biko were all critical of Western ideals and the role they played in African contexts. Their premise is simple: Africans have always had, and will always have, a distinct social system of equal value to a Western system. Showing this from different perspectives and historical epochs, each of these African intellectuals offer an alternative sociological analysis to South African society. By and large, their contributions have made less of an appearance in South African sociology. This is perhaps the consequence of an education system that has not truly been “decolonized” – a project currently on the agenda of student movements across South Africa.

Dating back to the South African colonial days, Toya Soga was influential in his responses to colonial order. As a high-ranking Christian minister, educated in Scotland and married to a Scottish woman, Soga was radical in his commitment to Christianity and simultaneous cultural integrity. He understood how a Western religion could be reconciled with African tradition and promoted the value of African societies. From Soga, we see how African-ness co-existed with “British civic nationality” in a potentially meaningful and socially (re)productive way. His intellectual attention to the cultural/religious project of colonial rule greatly influenced the political movements that followed after him. As a consequence of his views, other African intellectuals, like John Tengo Jabavu, began to challenge the subservient role in society which most colonialists expected blacks to adopt.

In post-colonial Africa, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere echo a similar sentiment towards “African-ness”. Nkrumah saw the value of African systems and argued that economic and political subjugation of colonialism conflicts with the original humanist (and inherently socialist) principles underlying African society, and must therefore reassert itself in post-colonial society. Likewise, Nyerere apprehends the value of African humanism as the foundation upon which pre-colonial Africa existed and thrived. For both of these intellectuals, the impact of colonialism infiltrated African thought and philosophy to the detriment of African progress.

These insights are telling of the functioning of pre-colonial social and political life and support a task of de-colonization that demolishes the roots of oppression in a system that rejects the legitimacy, sufficiency and ability of traditional African systems. Steve Biko was resolute in his belief that African culture is not time-bound. Present-day capitalism, neocolonialism and neoliberalism continue to present themselves as the norm, but these intellectuals show how Ubuntu or African humanism directly offers an alternative to that norm. This alternative is brought to light by a deep African understanding of African culture.

Good Leadership: Power and Privilege

When people speak of privilege it is often synonymous with White privilege. However, in addition to this, people need to be aware of the relativity of privilege. The relativity of privilege is dependent on the environment in which one finds oneself. An individual might find himself/herself more privileged in one context, and then less privileged in another. The reason for this being the power relations which exists to create a privileged position. My understanding is that power in this context refers to the ability of a person relative to another/other people. From this conception of power it becomes clear that there exists a level of inequality between what people can and cannot do, i.e. abilities. If one understands privilege from this position one can begin to extend the notion beyond just White privilege and see that everyone has a degree of privilege in some respect.

Sometimes You’re a Caterpillar (see video above) also shows how ability, power and privilege are related. The snail is inable to wriggle under the fence because of  its shell unlike the caterpillar who does so with ease. The point, however, is not to merely understand privilege but be aware of it and determine your response to it. Being aware of one’s position of privilege should spur one on to the struggles of other less privileged individuals. This takes a conscious effort to dismiss unproductive feelings of guilt and use your privileged position to “even the playing ground” and balance out the power relations. In my personal experience, this often proves to be the challenge.

In light of this,  good leadership identifies positions of privilege in a particular environment and makes an effort to decrease the level of power inequality in that environment. This requires good leaders to be concious of privilege – a practice not often praised. Practically, this would mean that good leaders create opportunities where both the privileged and the less privileged are in positions of relative equality. I say relative equality because the reality of world history dictates that there will always be a group of people who have more abilities than others. And so, good leadership does not ignore this phenomonon but uses it to create a less inequal environment – large scale and small scale.

What's This All About?

Hello world!

I'm a sociology major and this is a space for me to break away from the academic sphere and pursue what interests me. I will be posting all things sociologically related (which is very broad). My aim is to create a fun space and reveal the relevance of my major in the world today.

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