Intersectionality in “Love in Action” and the CeCe McDonald Case
Koritha Mitchell’s article “Love In Action” compares the similarities of the lynchings and other forms of racism against African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement and the violence against the LGBT community today. Mitchell initially considers the dichotomy between the white face of the LGBT community and marriage equality being the main struggle they face, and then she continues to compare the violence against blacks in the past and gays today. One recent instance of a hate-crime directed towards an LGBT community member of color, the CeCe McDonald case, provides insight about the role intersectional identities has in violence towards LGBT people with McDonald’s attack resulting from her identification as a black transwoman. Mitchell’s initial considerations of intersectionality’s role in oppression are not present in her comparisons of violence against blacks and gays, and while some of her general convictions remain true in regards to the CeCe McDonald case, she does not fully address the intersection of black and LGBT violence.
According to Olena Hankivsky, intersectionality shapes individual identity by the “interaction of different social locations”. These locations include race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic status, and religion among others. A fundamental concept to the idea of intersectionality is that people’s lives are multi-dimensional, and a person’s identity cannot be fully explained by a single social construct. Rather, different social constructs interact to form individual identity where one may face oppression and privilege simultaneously. One of the major struggles people with intersectional identities face is that activist groups are not intersectional. These groups often compete and end up inhibiting each other’s progress, also causing intersectional people to lack a true support group. Intersectionality therefore also advocates that oppressions are interlinked and need to be solved together.
The two most relevant social locations that face oppression today are those of race and sexuality. Specifically, African-Americans and LGBT people are the two communities that have suffered the most oppression in recent history. The intersection of these two identities intensifies the hatred they face. Black transwomen represent the most downtrodden identities of race and sexuality put into one. Racist groups target blacks more than any other race. The fundamentals of modern cases of violence against blacks such as the death of Michael Brown mirror those against African-Americans throughout the twentieth century in terms of hatred based on race, highlighting that African-Americans remain the most victimized racial group. The gay community does not share the same history as African-Americans, but homosexual men without a doubt are the LGBT group that remains the most oppressed. Unfortunately, those who objectify people based on sexual orientation associate transwomen with gay men and even express more hatred towards transwomen than gay men. The black transwoman thus represents the most oppressed intersectional identity, and instances of hate-crimes such as the CeCe McDonald case render the role race plays in LGBT violence.
The Cece McDonald case sheds light on the violence that people with intersectional identities face, serving as an instance of violence motivated by prejudice against an African-American transwoman. During the summer of 2011, CeCe and her friends were out on the town when they passed two white women and one white male, Dean Schmitz, who verbally assaulted them by calling them “niggers”, “faggots”, and “chicks with dicks”. One of the women struck CeCe with a glass of alcohol, deeply cutting CeCe’s face. A fight followed that CeCe attempted to flee. However, after being pursued by Schmitz, CeCe stabbed Schmitz in the breast with scissors from her purse, resulting in his death and CeCe’s arrest. She was sentenced to forty-one months in prison for second-degree manslaughter. Following the incident, Rai’vyn Cross, a close friend of CeCe, said that they “experience this [type of oppression] on a day-to-day basis”.
The nature of the attack reveals the extent to which CeCe’s color contributes as a factor for her oppression. The slurs shouted at CeCe and her friends include those pertaining to both race and sexuality, conveying that the attackers had bias against CeCe’s race. Furthermore, Schmitz’s autopsy revealed a swastika tattoo, conveying his assimilation to a group that victimizes both blacks and members of the LGBT community. The incident as a whole renders intersectional identities as a vital role in LGBT violence because of the way racism intensifies one’s prejudice towards trans-people or other members of the LGBT community. One cannot help but wonder if CeCe would have endured the same injustice if she were not a person of color. Cross’ quote after the attack resonates the most in that this single incident of oppression is one of many that go unseen. CeCe’s court sentence also conveys injustice based on race in addition to CeCe’s sexuality. Many question the morals of the court system for sentencing a woman to over three years in prison for surviving a hate-crime. Not only that, but CeCe is forced to remain in male prison, where she will undoubtedly face sexual assault and victimization from other inmates. Again, the topic of her race has to be considered in further victimizing CeCe in the eyes of the law in addition to her sexual orientation.
“Love in Action” compares the lynching of blacks in twentieth century American to the violence the LGBT community faces today. Mitchell supports the notion that African-Americans and the LGBT community face the most oppression of any group because the foundation of her argument renders gays today as the blacks of the majority of the twentieth century in terms of the persecution they suffer. Included in her article was a quote by Bayard Rustin, saying, “The new ‘niggers’ are gays”. In saying this, Mitchell attempts to convey that gays are the most vulnerable people of today just as blacks once were, fortifying the notion of blacks and LGBT people as the most oppressed groups.
Mitchell considers the role race possesses in Gay Rights and understands intersectionality’s presence in hate-crimes. In discussing a quote by Sharon Holland recounting the prejudice she faced integrating a college as an African-American woman and LGBT member, Mitchell notes “violence can emerge as easily as a response to her queerness as to her blackness as to her womanness. Very often in this country, it is violence that stands at the intersection of those identity categories” (Mitchell 690). Mitchell identifies the origins for violence as oppression against a culmination of groups and that attacks against individuals can be traced to bias against multiple groups, not just one. Mitchell understands the role intersectionality plays in LGBT violence when she says that violence can be attributed to reactions to any one of the groups the victim identifies with. Furthermore, Mitchell’s discussion of the public perception of gay rights supports the notion of her understanding of intersectional identity’s presence in hate-crimes. Mitchell brings up that “When one mentions LGBT people, what comes to mind is a middle-class white man who would enjoy unbound privilege if he would simply ‘keep his sexual preferences to himself.’ Equating the injustices heaped on African Americans with an otherwise privileged white man being denied the right to marry seems to diminish the price paid for the progress blacks presumably enjoy” (691). Mitchell’s discussion of the face of gay rights being the white man suffering from marriage inequality highlights the sanitized version of the oppression the LGBT community faces. She conveys how African-Americans do not share the same privilege as whites even though they are both members of the LGBT community. White members of the LGBT community do not experience the same attacks and oppression that blacks do, highlighting the significance of intersectional identities in LGBT-related violence.
However, Mitchell’s initial address of intersectional identities does not match the manner in which she expresses her convictions about parallels between black lynchings and LGBT violence throughout the rest of her manifest. By comparing violence against blacks during the Civil Rights Movement and that of gays today, Mitchell never addresses racial violence against African-Americans today and portrays racial prejudice against blacks as a thing of the past. Also in doing so, she treats the two issues as separate. Whether it is for the sake of her argument that she does not discuss violence pertaining to both race and sexuality, she portrays racial violence and LGBT violence exclusively. This theme of exclusivity present in her main argument contradicts her discussion of intersectionality in her introduction.
In regards to the CeCe McDonald case, as stated earlier, Mitchell never fully addresses congregating violence towards blacks and members of the LGBT community, but some of her early convictions remain true. CeCe’s attack can be derived from a response to her blackness just as much as to her “transwomanness”. CeCe’s attack also falls in accordance with Mitchell’s understanding that violence in the United States today results from an intersection of multiple oppressed groups. Her exclusive treatment of black violence and LGBT violence in the rest of her argument does not take into account CeCe’s instance of a culmination of the two.
Koritha Mitchell’s words “It is never useful to rank oppressions” highlight the problem with intersectionality. The Civil Rights Movement and Gay Rights Movement should collaborate and work together rather than isolate each other. With the growing popularity with the idea of intersectionality, the message behind CeCe McDonald’s case becomes more apparent in that oppressions are not isolated.
Hankivsky, Olena. “Intersectionality 101” The Institute for Intersectionality Research and Policy, SFU. April 2014
Mitchell, Koritha. “Love in Action: Noting Similarities between Lynching Then and Anti-LGBT Violence Now.” Callaloo 36.3 (2013). Print.
Pasulka, Nicole. “The Case of CeCe McDonald: Murder-or Self-Defense Against a Hate Crime?” Mother Jones. N.p., 22 May 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.
“Why Aren’t We Fighting for CeCe McDonald?” News & Views. Ebony, 11 June 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.
