Intersectionality Matters!

December 14th, 2019 marks the fifth anniversary of the Say Her Name campaign, a movement founded to raise awareness of the names and stories of Black women, girls and femmes killed by police, and to provide support to the families affected. The campaign has produced a groundbreaking report expanding the conversation on police violence so that it foregrounds the experiences of Black women and girls, earned a nod in a tweet from a major presidential candidate, developed a multimedia arts-activism venture called Say Her Name: The Lives That Should Have Been, and convened the #SayHerName Mothers Network, a community for mothers of Black women lost to police violence. But none of these developments would be possible without the courage, resilience and ingenuity of Fran Garrett, the mother of Michelle Cusseaux. Cusseaux, a 50-year-old Black woman, was shot and killed on August 14, 2014 by Officer Percy Dupra while Phoenix police were trying to serve a mental health wellness check. Her life was taken just days after the police killing of Ferguson, MO teenager Mike Brown became national news, sparking nationwide outrage and galvanizing the modern movement for Black lives. To help Cusseaux’s story gain resonance in its own right, Garrett led a group of local activists in marching her daughter’s casket through downtown Phoenix, calling for an outside agency to investigate the shooting and a slew of reforms aimed at racial justice and mental health parity. It was this brave act that drew the attention of the African American Policy Forum, which catalyzed the Say Her Name campaign and the delineation of a throughline linking the loss of Cusseaux with countless other Black women like her lost too soon to state violence. Garrett’s bid for broader attention to the cause was amplified a few months later at the Millions March NYC, where AAPF made an intersectional intervention by saying the names of Michelle and other slain Black women to politicize their legacies alongside the demands made on behalf of Brown and other victims of police violence. On this special episode of Intersectionality Matters, Kimberlé Crenshaw dives deep with Fran Garrett to go beyond the headlines for the unvarnished truth on the unspeakably tragic loss of a beloved Phoenix community member. Tune in as they take stock of the movement’s progress five years in and assess the headway still to be made in making Black women’s vulnerability to police violence fully legible as a social problem. Music by Blue Dot Sessions Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine Recorded by Sarah Ventre and Julia Sharpe-Levine Additional support provided by Andrew Sun, G’Ra Asim, Emmett O’Malley and Michael Kramer Twitter: @IMKC_podcast, IG: @IntersectionalityMatters, Fb: Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw #IntersectionalityMatters LEARN MORE: http://aapf.org/shn-campaign SAY HER NAME CEREMONY OF REMEMBRANCE (NYC)- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/say-her-name-5th-anniversary-remembrance-ceremony-tickets-85292830151 MICHELLE CUSSEAUX MENTAL HEALTH FAIR (PHX)-https://www.aahherc.com/

Defending the C.R.O.W.N: Life, LIberty & the Pursuit of Nappyness With Tracee Ellis Ross & Brittany Noble Jones There’s a natural hair boom among women of African descent. Kinky, curly and coily hairstyles have joined cornrows, locks and twists as just a few of the looks that Black women, girls and femmes are rocking confidently and unapologetically. This Black hair renaissance is reshaping what we see in fashion magazines, on television, in classrooms, and even in boardrooms. But constant vigilance is the price of freedom, with the exception of new legislation in California and New York, it remains true that anti-discrimination laws nation-wide do virtually nothing to protect Black people from getting fired, suspended, and otherwise disciplined for wearing their natural hair. In 2012, Vanessa Van Dyke was threatened with expulsion by her Florida middle school unless she “tamed” her natural hair. Tiana Parker was told by her school that her dreadlocks were faddish and unacceptable. In 2013, Melphine Evans, a top executive at British Petroleum, says she was fired for wearing braids and dashikis to work. And in 2016, Chastity Jones lost her case against an employer who withdrew her job offer for refusing to cut off her natural locs. On this special episode of Intersectionality Matters, Kimberlé Crenshaw dishes with Mixed-ish star and PATTERN founder Tracee Ellis Ross on their respective journeys towards loving their own natural hair, aesthetic freedom, and how the current convulsive political moment is expanding the social justice imaginary. We also hear from award-winning journalist Brittany Noble Jones about her personal experience with hair discrimination in the workplace and modeling self-love for the next generation. Tune in for an inspiring look at Black women’s tireless advocacy for life, liberty and the pursuit of nappyness. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe Levine Recorded by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Susan Valot Music by Blue Dot Sessions With: Tracee Ellis Ross, (@traceeellisross), Brittany Noble Jones (@noblejonesontv) Pattern Beauty: @PatternBeauty Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Additional support from G'Ra Asim, Michael Kramer, Emmett O'Malley, Zoe Bush, Andrew Sun

In this episode, Kimberlé chops it up with Dorothy Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading scholar in race, gender, bioethics, and the law. In a conversation that merges intersectional inquiry with The 1619 Project, which interrogates America’s history of slavery in order to understand racial disparities in 2019, Crenshaw and Roberts shed light on the lasting consequences of slavery, segregation, and White Supremacy, and their impact on Black women specifically. Their timely conversation highlights the relationship between the legacy of slavery and instances of modern oppression against Black women, such as the curbing of welfare, forced sterilization, and mass incarceration. Music by Blue Dot Sessions Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine Recorded by Emmett O’Malley and Julia Sharpe-Levine Additional support provided by Andrew Sun, Mihir Samson, G’Ra Asim, and Michael Kramer Twitter: @IMKC_podcast, IG: @IntersectionalityMatters, Fb: Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw #IntersectionalityMatters

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the wrenching demonstration against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar and refuge for queer and trans people in Lower Manhattan. The courageous act of resistance that took place over the course of several days in 1969 is widely perceived as the catalyst to the modern LGBTQ+ liberation movement in the United States. As Pride month reaches an exuberant crescendo this weekend with World Pride in NYC, an event that’s one part party, one part protest, questions about the trajectory, priorities, and composition of the movement persist, including how to best foreground the lives and concerns of members of the LGBTQ+ community whose experience is filtered through the interstices of more than one form of oppression. On this episode of Intersectionality Matters, host Kimberlé Crenshaw ponders these questions with two of the movement’s torchbearers: Barbara Smith, trailblazing Black feminist critic and co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, and Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, also known as Lady Phyll, co-founder and executive director of UK Black Pride. Tune in for their fascinating insights on living in the overlapping margins of race, gender and sexuality, the future of LGBTQ activism and their commitments to retrieving the experiences of queer Black women from a location that resists telling. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe Levine Recorded by Elizabeth Press, the Sanctuary for Independent Media, and Michael Kramer Music by Blue Dot Sessions With: Lady Phyll (@msladyphyll), Barbara Smith (@thebarbarasmith), and the Reclaim Pride Coalition (Colin Ashley, Robert Baez, Francesca Barjon) (@queermarch) Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Additional support from G'Ra Asim, Naimah Hakim, Madeline Cameron Wardleworth, Peter Gaber, Ezra Young ~~~ NYC Trans Day of Action Friday, June 28 from 4-6pm: https://alp.org/events/15th-annual-trans-day-action NYC Dyke March Saturday, June 29 from 5-8pm: https://www.nycdykemarch.com/ Queer Liberation March Sunday, June 30 from 9:30-3pm: https://reclaimpridenyc.org/ World Pride Parade Sunday, June 30 at 12pm: https://2019-worldpride-stonewall50.nycpride.org/ UK Black Pride Saturday, July 7 at 12pm: https://www.ukblackpride.org.uk/

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”--the misguided notion that love eliminates the need for apology. In politics, the love that mutes apologies is often same-party affinity--as in, “we know we’re on the same side” so accountability is unnecessary. Yet it’s more likely that the contrary is true: love as well as coalition demand an openness to saying “I’m sorry,” for without it, justice is impotent. But what are the consequences when apologies don’t materialize? Is letting it go really the only way to think about healing, both emotionally and politically? In this episode of Intersectionality Matters, host Kimberlé Crenshaw talks to Tony award-winning playwright and activist Eve Ensler about her groundbreaking new book The Apology and how the withholding that is the touchstone of the inviolable code of silence among men can be broken. Ensler discusses the journey she traveled to conjure the apology she needed from her late father for sexual and physical abuse. We also hear from philosopher Kate Manne on himpathy, the term she coined to describe the disproportionate and inappropriate sympathy powerful men often receive in cases of sexual assault and other forms of gendered violence. Himpathy, she explains, may help us understand how some women who stood by Anita Hill are now embracing Joe Biden’s candidacy despite his failure to fully come to terms with his role in in her heinous treatment during Clarence Thomas’s senate confirmation hearings in 1991. Both Manne’s and Ensler’s interviews illustrate the grim reality that men are often socialized to deny their commission of gender-based harm, and that many of us are socialized to condone that very inability to accept blame— sometimes to the degree that we position men who have victimized others as victims themselves. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of what it could mean for perpetrators and bystanders to genuinely confront and atone for violence they’ve either committed or enabled. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe Levine Recorded by UCLA and Cornell University Music by Blue Dot Sessions With: Eve Ensler, (@vday, @eveensler) Kate Manne (@kate_manne) Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Additional support from G'Ra Asim, Michael Kramer, Kevin Minofu, Naimah Hakim, Madeline Cameron Wardleworth

After hip hop icon Dr. Dre brutally assaulted trailblazing emcee and television personality Dee Barnes in 1991, his career continued to skyrocket while she was effectively blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Nearly three decades later, Dre, who has allegedly assaulted several other women in addition to Dee, continues to enjoy a celebrated career in which his heinous misdeeds have become mere footnotes. The combination of racism and patriarchy is the condition of possibility that allows Beats by Dre to be well-known commodities while beatings by Dre remain largely overlooked. As part of their fifth annual event series, Her Dream Deferred: A Week on the Status of Black Women, the African American Policy Forum, in partnership with the Hammer Museum, convened a panel called “Black Women and #MeToo”. Along with Dee, the panel included such leading lights as actor and Times Up WOC activist Rashida Jones, supermodel and Bill Cosby accuser Beverly Johnson, cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux, historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers and #MuteRKelly co-founder Kenyette Tisha Barnes. The panel was moderated by AAPF Executive Director and Intersectionality Matters host Kimberlé Crenshaw. The panel uplifted the unsung genealogy of the Me Too movement by acknowledging forerunners like Tarana Burke, who coined the hashtag #MeToo to raise awareness around the question of Black women’s vulnerability to sexual violence, and Anita Hill, who told the world her story about what a Supreme Court nominee had done to her as a young lawyer. Black feminists like bell hooks and Alice Walker were recognized also for laying bare the realities of gender-based violence that impacts Black women. Tune into this profound and pathbreaking episode of Intersectionality Matters for a thorough post-mortem on the powerful insights shared on the panel, as well as a look into what the movement’s path forward might look like. Hosted by Dee Barnes (@sistadbarnes) and Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe Levine Recorded by the Hammer Museum Music by Blue Dot Sessions Featured panelists: Kenyette Barnes, Beverly Johnson, Rashida Jones, Stephanie Jones-Rogers, Jamilah Lemieux More on Her Dream Deferred: aapf.org/her-dream-deferred-initiative Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Additional support from G'Ra Asim, Michael Kramer, Kevin Minofu, Naimah Hakim, Madeline Cameron-Wardleworth, UCLA School of Law

R. Kelly’s serial abuse of Black women and girls has been one of the entertainment industry’s worst-kept secrets for the entirety of the 21st century. In the mid 90s, Kelly was romantically linked with and even briefly married to 15-year-old singer Aaliyah, for whom he wrote and produced the incriminatory hit “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.” An explicit bootleg tape which appeared to feature Kelly abusing yet another teenage girl circulated on street corners as early as 2001. In 2017, a Buzzfeed exposé alleged that the man who famously crooned “I’m a bad man/And I’m not ashamed of it” held several women captive in his home in a cult-like harem. Yet it took the convergence of the #MuteRKelly movement, the January 2019 release of documentary Surviving R. Kelly and popular culture’s broader reckoning with the pattern of sexual violence perpetrated by powerful men for the self-proclaimed Pied Piper of R&B to face consequences for orchestrating his salacious symphony. At long last, Kelly has now been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four women, three of whom were minors at the time. On this timely and trenchant episode of Intersectionality Matters, host Kimberle Crenshaw goes beyond the sheet music with #MuteRKelly co-founder Kenyette Barnes to rupture the rhythm Kelly has used to give Black women and girls the blues for decades. Intersectionality Matters! is recorded and produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine. This episode was edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Rebecca Scheckman and recorded by Robert Jimison, Michael Kramer, and Julia Sharpe-Levine. Additional support was provided by Michael Kramer, Naimah Hakim, G’Ra Asim, Kevin Minofu, and Madeline Cameron Wardleworth. Music by Blue Dot Sessions Juror Audio from Lifetime Docuseries, "Surviving R. Kelly" Kenyette Barnes: @legisempress Mute R Kelly: ig: @officialmuterkelly, twitter: @offMuteRKelly Kimberlé Crenshaw: ig: @kimberlecrenshaw, twitter: @sandylocks Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Learn more: https://www.muterkelly.org

On August 1, 2016, Baltimore County police arrived at the Randallstown, Maryland apartment of 23-year-old Korryn Gaines to serve a warrant alleging that she had failed to appear in court. Gaines, who had miscarried twins as a consequence of improper treatment while being held in connection with a traffic stop, had received paperwork for the stop that did not provide the date on which she was expected to appear. A month prior to the day officers descended on her home, Gaines had visited the police station seeking clarification about her court date, only to be told that the officer who had issued the paperwork was unavailable. When Gaines noticed police attempting to force entry that day in August, she sat down in her living room with a legally owned firearm, and a 6-hour standoff ensued. Gaines had amassed a sizable online following via her activism and poetry, and narrated the sequence in real time on Facebook Live until the social media portal shut her page down per police request. During the 6-hour standoff, Gaines relocated to her kitchen, at which point Officer Royce Ruby, Jr. fired at Gaines from outside her apartment. Officer Ruby then entered the apartment and shot Gaines three more times. One of the bullets passed through Gaines and wounded her young son, who survived but sustained lifelong disabling injuries. County prosecutors concluded that the killing of Gaines was justified, and Officer Ruby was not criminally charged. Pundits and critics have foregrounded Korryn’s possible mental impairment, her gun ownership, and her ideology as reasons to paper over the possible intersectional vulnerabilities that contributed to Korryn’s killing. In this riveting and morally urgent episode of Intersectionality Matters!, host Kimberlé Crenshaw sits down with Rhanda Dormeus, Korryn’s mother, to reveal the untold story of Gaines’ death, the blatant miscarriages of justice that led to it, and the harrowing consequences of Officer Ruby’s authorization to take the life of a mother in her own home. Dormeus’s story plumbs the very depths of unfathomable grief and raises deeply disturbing questions about whether the sanctity accorded to most human life is withheld from Black women and their families. Dormeus has reaped some positivity from tragic topsoil by becoming a leading voice in the Say Her Name movement, a campaign to shine light on Black women who are the underreported victims of police violence. Intersectionality Matters! is recorded and produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine. This episode was edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Alex Schein and recorded by Stacia Brown, Rebecca Scheckman, and Julia Sharpe-Levine, with consulting help from Thea Chaloner. Additional support was provided by Janine Jackson, Naimah Hakim, G’Ra Asim, Kevin Minofu, and Madeline Cameron Wardleworth. Learn more about Korryn’s story and the #SayHerName Campaign at aapf.org/podcast. Sign up on Patreon (patreon.com/intersectionalitymatters) for bonus content from this interview.

We're pleased to bring you a new podcast from AAPF and Kimberlé Crenshaw, Intersectionality Matters! Featuring on the ground interviews with some of the world's most innovative activists, artists, and scholars, each episode will explore a different topic through an intersectional lens, ranging from the Supreme Court to grassroots activism in Brazil and the Congo to #SayHerName and the future of the #MeToo campaign. Today we bring you a special preview episode in time for the midterm elections. We hope you enjoy it, and stay tuned for the official podcast release later this month! ~~~ Donald Trump’s path to power was littered with attacks on Muslims, women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, people who are undocumented, and people who are queer. And these communities have suffered under his administration. The November 6th election presents an opportunity to put significant checks on Trumpism. There is no lack of clarity about what is at stake, but the ability to fight back effectively turns on the ability of all of these constituencies to see common cause and to overcome concerted efforts to keep them from voting. On this special preview of Intersectionality Matters!, we talk to two African American women leading the fight for our democracy: Barbara Arnwine, Founder of both the Transformative Justice Coalition and Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition; and Kristen Clarke, Executive Director of the Lawyer’s Committee on Civil Rights Under Law. Clarke is leading the court challenge against Georgia’s vote suppression tactics in the face of the historic campaign being waged by Stacey Abrams, a candidate who may make history by becoming the first African American woman to be elected governor. These eye-opening interviews by Kimberlé Crenshaw address critical issues presented in this election, and explore what more we must do after November 6th to ensure intersectional justice for all. ~~~ Music by Blue Dot Sessions Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine Special thanks to Thea Chaloner, Alex Schein, Luke Charles Harris, Michael Kramer, Naimah Hakim, G'Ra Asim, Madeline Cameron Wardleworth, Kevin Minofu, Janine Jackson, and Abby Dobson. Kimberlé Crenshaw: @sandylocks African American Policy Forum: @aapolicyforum #IntersectionalityMatters