Hey Moises, thanks for your text. Interesting. Two comments, though.
To begin with, I am always sceptical of the use of wokeism as a valid... category. It is much more close to a straw man argument, something that the far crazy and hysterical right invented to oppose and define themselves opposing it... It is a bit like the escualidos of Chavez.
That being said, I like to take your words almost literally, and then I do think that you do a disservice to the work that Crenshaw has developed along time by saying that she reclaimed the use of categories.
What I understand from her oeuvre is pretty much the opposite: she analyses and criticise the use of boxes or categories (in a fairly postmodern way, by the way) by linking them. When you realise that there is interaction between the categories, the concept of category as such looses value, since you realise tat those boxes are not isolated, but are porous between each other.
To put it in mathematical terms, the value of intersectionality as a concept is that the sufferings of a black and poor woman are not the added sufferings of somebody that is poor plus somebody that is woman plus somebody that is black. What counts is the way those different identities interact and potentiate their effects. What Crenshaw showed, says inti the mathematician, is that suffering(woman and black and poor) = suffering(black) + suffering(woman) + suffering(poor) + suffering(black*woman) + suffering(black*poor) + suffering(poor*woman) + suffering(poor*woman*black). The interaction terms are non zero, so the suffering is non lineal. Because of that, the linear terms are unrelevant, i. e. categories are useless as the postmodern already showed.
Further I do like the spirit of your writing. Nobody, certainly not me, want to cancel anybody. If that (let's stop cancelling) is the take home message from your lines, thanks! I agree.
I was thinking on my classmates when I wrote this reflection. They’re liberals and very much against the woke culture, so my intention with the term “wokeism” was to keep them near at the beginning of the article hoping to having them till the end.
Then I surely do appreciate the math behind intersectionality you showed to me. I believe that it makes stronger my argument about the need to review categories by displacing attribution biases as far as possible. But you’re right anyways: I haven’t read, let alone understand, deep enough Crenshaw’ ouvre to honor her conclusions regardless of considering all of them as valid.
I also like and feel pleased with the spirit of your comments. Instead of canceling ourselves we’ve proved to keep talking and I wouldn’t want to miss any of your great writing (I told you a long time ago: you’re a great writer!).
Hey Moises, thanks for your text. Interesting. Two comments, though.
To begin with, I am always sceptical of the use of wokeism as a valid... category. It is much more close to a straw man argument, something that the far crazy and hysterical right invented to oppose and define themselves opposing it... It is a bit like the escualidos of Chavez.
That being said, I like to take your words almost literally, and then I do think that you do a disservice to the work that Crenshaw has developed along time by saying that she reclaimed the use of categories.
What I understand from her oeuvre is pretty much the opposite: she analyses and criticise the use of boxes or categories (in a fairly postmodern way, by the way) by linking them. When you realise that there is interaction between the categories, the concept of category as such looses value, since you realise tat those boxes are not isolated, but are porous between each other.
To put it in mathematical terms, the value of intersectionality as a concept is that the sufferings of a black and poor woman are not the added sufferings of somebody that is poor plus somebody that is woman plus somebody that is black. What counts is the way those different identities interact and potentiate their effects. What Crenshaw showed, says inti the mathematician, is that suffering(woman and black and poor) = suffering(black) + suffering(woman) + suffering(poor) + suffering(black*woman) + suffering(black*poor) + suffering(poor*woman) + suffering(poor*woman*black). The interaction terms are non zero, so the suffering is non lineal. Because of that, the linear terms are unrelevant, i. e. categories are useless as the postmodern already showed.
Further I do like the spirit of your writing. Nobody, certainly not me, want to cancel anybody. If that (let's stop cancelling) is the take home message from your lines, thanks! I agree.
Thank you my friend!
I was thinking on my classmates when I wrote this reflection. They’re liberals and very much against the woke culture, so my intention with the term “wokeism” was to keep them near at the beginning of the article hoping to having them till the end.
Then I surely do appreciate the math behind intersectionality you showed to me. I believe that it makes stronger my argument about the need to review categories by displacing attribution biases as far as possible. But you’re right anyways: I haven’t read, let alone understand, deep enough Crenshaw’ ouvre to honor her conclusions regardless of considering all of them as valid.
I also like and feel pleased with the spirit of your comments. Instead of canceling ourselves we’ve proved to keep talking and I wouldn’t want to miss any of your great writing (I told you a long time ago: you’re a great writer!).
Big hug,
Moises.