The Crossroads of Common Ground
Intersectionality is a buzzword.
Initially coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw as ‘a prism to bring light to dynamics within discrimination law that weren’t being appreciated by the courts’. The term has vaulted into modern vernacular to highlight the different experiences of the marginalized in society. While it provides a framework to understand discrimination and oppression, some find its current practice divisive — lauding it as ‘the dangerous faith’.
In her original paper on intersectionality, Crenshaw referenced a four-way intersection. Traffic flows from all four directions. If you are standing in the center of the intersection, you can be hit from all four sides. ‘Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.’
There is no disputing the reality that we are all made up of multiple social identities. No human fits into a single box or label. When one or more of these identities conflict with mainstream ideologies and power structures, we are left standing in the middle of the intersection, facing danger from multiple sides.
Intersectionality highlights the concept that labeling a person based on one identifier — race, nationality, political persuasion, religion, sex — is limiting. Too often, we don’t see through Crenshaw’s prism of identity but through a single lens focused on one point, leaving the rest blurry. We miss the larger picture, like the three men trying to identify the elephant.
What if the different social identities we have didn’t create borders between us and one another but instead made common ground? Common ground is a shared space of shared interests, beliefs or opinions. It is where people of different views and experiences can come together in agreement. They often agree on a concept that is important to both parties, though they may hold opposing views on many other ideas.
Like Crenshaw’s traffic intersection, urban areas are rich with diversity and common ground. Take the other residents in my building. We have a rainbow of passports. We have wildly different lives — young professionals and retired couples, single residents and partnerships. Yet we also have a lot in common. We have all chosen to live in this one space. We share utility bills and common feelings when the polka band practices past 10 pm.
Common ground may seem hard to find. These shared spaces appear to shrink rapidly as polarization peels away, exposing only animosity and villainy. Yet this is only the narrative thrust upon us and only the reality if we choose to believe it. We as humans have more in common than we have in opposition.
Danish TV 2 station shared a short video highlighting just this. It brought out several groups of people and placed them in boxes. A group of nurses, men covered in tattoos, footballers, immigrants, and ‘high earners’. Then they asked the group a series of questions. They asked, “What was the class clown?”, “Who are step parents?” and “Who is lonely?” As the questions were asked, those who answered people came out of the boxes to stand together in the middle of the group.
We find common ground by focusing on our similarities, our identities, and the ideas we share. From this foundation, we can build understanding. How do we get to this common ground? Start by asking questions and listening respectfully,
