The following is an excerpt from a statement issued by the Asian American Policy Forum, led by Kimberlé Crenshaw, known for her work on critical intersectionality.
Founded in 1996, The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) is an innovative think tank that connects academics, activists and policy-makers to promote efforts to dismantle structural inequality. AAPF promotes frameworks and strategies that address a vision of racial justice that embraces the intersections of race, gender, class, and the array of barriers that disempower those who are marginalized in society. AAPF is dedicated to advancing and expanding racial justice, gender equality, and the indivisibility of all human rights, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Kimberlé Crenshaw co-founded the AAPF and serves as Executive Director. Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. Her articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review and Southern California Law Review. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop, and the co-editor of the volume, Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement.
The past several weeks have been defined by acute uncertainty and omnipresent fear. We at the African American Policy Forum write with alarm, sympathy, and a persistent hope that refuses to wane in the face of dogged tragedy. We stand in solidarity with you in bracing for the unspeakable while we maintain an eye towards the possibilities that extend beyond this menacing moment.
While this virus knows no gender, race, age, or class, it is the structures that predate its arrival that channel the disproportionate distribution of misery and devastation to those made most vulnerable due to societal organization. Many can see already how structural and historical circumstances have impacted health care workers, low-income caregivers, homeless people, the unemployed, the incarcerated, the undocumented, and many other citizens whose lives have time and again been judged to be less valuable. These patterns will almost surely be an afterthought in the media’s breathless coverage and the government’s targeted intervention. We already see evidence of these hierarchies at work in the heart of this storm: the much-lauded coronavirus relief bills make no direct effort to assist most workers, opting instead to prioritize businesses.
In place of shining our attention on the many intersecting forces at play, the focus of mainstream narratives minimizes the particular vulnerabilities that some of us face in favor of an exclusive narrative of a common threat. Yet we’ve learned from past tragedies that universalizing crises does not yield fully inclusive remedies. Only confronting the uncommon dimensions of a common threat will open our consciousness and actions to the kind of intersectional solidarity that we’ve long needed. This is the time to build up our ability to see, think, and act in the face of cumulative vulnerability in a way that enhances our capacity to meet the current crisis.
Part of that building up involves an awareness that while the domestic implications of this pandemic are harrowing, its reach threatens not one country, but all of humanity. Broadening our sense of solidarity to every corner of the world is a stark reminder of the inadequacy of traditional American frameworks for solidarity. We need frameworks that are robust, multiaxial, and intersectional.
Read more on the AAPF website
Founded in 1996, The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) is an innovative think tank that connects academics, activists and policy-makers to promote efforts to dismantle structural inequality. AAPF promotes frameworks and strategies that address a vision of racial justice that embraces the intersections of race, gender, class, and the array of barriers that disempower those who are marginalized in society. AAPF is dedicated to advancing and expanding racial justice, gender equality, and the indivisibility of all human rights, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Kimberlé Crenshaw co-founded the AAPF and serves as Executive Director. Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. Her articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review and Southern California Law Review. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop, and the co-editor of the volume, Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement.
The past several weeks have been defined by acute uncertainty and omnipresent fear. We at the African American Policy Forum write with alarm, sympathy, and a persistent hope that refuses to wane in the face of dogged tragedy. We stand in solidarity with you in bracing for the unspeakable while we maintain an eye towards the possibilities that extend beyond this menacing moment.
While this virus knows no gender, race, age, or class, it is the structures that predate its arrival that channel the disproportionate distribution of misery and devastation to those made most vulnerable due to societal organization. Many can see already how structural and historical circumstances have impacted health care workers, low-income caregivers, homeless people, the unemployed, the incarcerated, the undocumented, and many other citizens whose lives have time and again been judged to be less valuable. These patterns will almost surely be an afterthought in the media’s breathless coverage and the government’s targeted intervention. We already see evidence of these hierarchies at work in the heart of this storm: the much-lauded coronavirus relief bills make no direct effort to assist most workers, opting instead to prioritize businesses.
In place of shining our attention on the many intersecting forces at play, the focus of mainstream narratives minimizes the particular vulnerabilities that some of us face in favor of an exclusive narrative of a common threat. Yet we’ve learned from past tragedies that universalizing crises does not yield fully inclusive remedies. Only confronting the uncommon dimensions of a common threat will open our consciousness and actions to the kind of intersectional solidarity that we’ve long needed. This is the time to build up our ability to see, think, and act in the face of cumulative vulnerability in a way that enhances our capacity to meet the current crisis.
Part of that building up involves an awareness that while the domestic implications of this pandemic are harrowing, its reach threatens not one country, but all of humanity. Broadening our sense of solidarity to every corner of the world is a stark reminder of the inadequacy of traditional American frameworks for solidarity. We need frameworks that are robust, multiaxial, and intersectional.
Read more on the AAPF website