Intersectionality Is Harder Than You May Think

By Kovie Biakolo

In recent years, intersectionality — a concept that centers how different identities can be simultaneously oppressive — has become a popular subject, albeit something sometimes reduced to nothing more than a buzzword. But though the word itself has been at times misused or too flippantly used, intersectionality matters — deeply. For many who exist in various positions of disadvantage, intersectionality allows them to name their experiences, bringing understanding and relief. I should know; I was one of those many.

In graduate school, while studying Organizational and Multicultural Communication (Multiculturalism), I fell in love with the works of W.E.B. DuBois, most notably Double Consciousness. As an African who came to the United States in my late teens, the concept provided a label for my new understanding of self and blackness. But something was missing. Double Consciousness depicted the meaning of blackness in America in a way that I felt, but it didn’t completely capture my experiences. Being foreign (and a foreign woman at that), there was so much more I needed to add as an outsider experiencing marginalizations at multiple levels in the American system.

Like many people caught at the cross sections of multiple identities that are oppressed, it can be difficult to describe how all these…