Here’s a definition:
Intersectionality is an analytic framework which attempts to identify how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized in society.[1] Intersectionality considers that various forms of social stratification, such as class, race, sexual orientation, age, disability and gender, do not exist separately from each other but are interwoven together. While the theory began as an exploration of the oppression of women of color within society, today the analysis is potentially applied to all social categories (including social identities usually seen as dominant when considered independently).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
In other words: empathy.
In other words: I know that uncomfortable body language, that nervous laugh, that immediately code switch when you walk into a room of people who expect your DNA to make room so they don’t feel uncomfortable walking past it or speaking to it.
In other words: it’s seeing this on Youtube and knowing that this woman speaking is a British black woman., and myself at the grocery store where a young black girl someone reminds me that I’m black, and my asian friends, and my latinx friends, and every woman who has been asked if she’s a real gamer.
In other words: it’s the same spiderweb pattern of my own heartbreaks in your anger, your silence, your forced laughter at work functions, and your exhaustion when you try to tell someone, “Yes, I think you have a right to your feelings, but I’m sorry if I can’t hear your complain over my own blood screaming in the road.”
In other words: empathy.
In other words: caring about other people as if they were just as important and worthy of life and the good things it can be as you are.
In other words, it is standing at a place where all the roads lead to regardless of where people started and wondering – as I often do – what took them so long to get here.