Black Lives Matter Library Guide: Intersectional Approaches

Updated and expanded edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism. Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, “the complex confluence of identities—race, class, gender, and sexuality—systemic to women of color oppression and liberation.”

Originally published in 1982, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies is the first comprehensive collection of Black feminist scholarship. African American feminists, writers, and educators Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith co-edited this foundational volume of essays designed to map a program for African American women’s studies and research on issues ranging from racial bias and sexism, to homophobia. This book featured essays by Alice Walker, the Combahee River Collective, and Barbara Smith, and original resources. This book is vital to today's conversation on race and gender in America.

The concept of intersectionality has become a hot topic in academic and activist circles alike. But what exactly does it mean, and why has it emerged as such a vital lens through which to explore how social inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability and ethnicity shape one another? In this new book Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge provide a much-needed, introduction to the field of intersectional knowledge and praxis. They analyze the emergence, growth and contours of the concept and show how intersectional frameworks speak to topics as diverse as human rights, neoliberalism, identity politics, immigration, hip hop, global social protest, diversity, digital media, Black feminism in Brazil, violence and World Cup soccer

Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries offers a sustained, interdisciplinary exploration of intersectional ideas, histories, and practices that no other text does. Deftly synthesizing much of the existing literatures on intersectionality, one of the most significant theoretical and political precepts of our time, May invites us to confront a disconcerting problem: though intersectionality is widely known, acclaimed, and applied, it is often construed in ways that depoliticize, undercut, or even violate its most basic premises. May cogently demonstrates how intersectionality has been repeatedly resisted, misunderstood, and misapplied: provocatively, she shows the degree to which intersectionality is often undone or undermined by supporters and critics alike. A clarion call to engage intersectionality's radical ideas, histories, and justice orientations more meaningfully.

Intersectionality, or the consideration of race, class, and gender, is one of the prominent contemporary theoretical contributions made by scholars in the field of women's studies that now broadly extends across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Taking stock of this transformative paradigm, The Intersectional Approach guides new and established researchers to engage in a critical reflection about the broad adoption of intersectionality that constitutes what the editors call a new "social literacy" for scholars.

The steady immigration of black populations from Africa and the Caribbean over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the racial, ethnic, and political landscape in the United States. But how will these "new blacks" behave politically in America? Using an original survey of New York City workers and multiple national data sources, Christina M. Greer explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. In an age where racial and ethnic identities intersect, intertwine, and interact in increasingly complex ways, Black Ethnics offers a powerful and rigorous analysis of black politics and coalitions in the post-Civil Rights era.