How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The Combahee women did not coin the phrase “intersectionality”—Kimberlé Crenshaw did so in 1989—but the CRC did articulate the analysis that animates the meaning of intersectionality, the idea that multiple oppressions reinforce each other to create new categories of suffering.

The first was that oppression on the basis of identity—whether it was racial, gender, class, or sexual orientation identity—was a source of political radicalization.

The writer, Bari Weiss, in the op-ed page of the New York Times, said intersectionality is the problem with the left today. That is an odd assertion to say the least. What does that assertion even mean? It means all of the lame coalitions that are saying, “Put all of your differences on the back burner. Don’t talk about race. Don’t talk about gender. Don’t talk about sexuality. Just talk about class.” This approach led us to a false unity, because we have glossed over who we are and what privileges we enjoy, and oppression we suffer, as a result. The nexus between the power of radical