Viewing oppression through the lens of Intersectionality is empowering as it gives us a different manner of examining oppression and exploring ways to fight it.

Intersectionality, helps us to understand that oppression is not the either/or ideal that Collins wrote about in her article, but rather that experiencing being both the oppressor and the oppressed is in fact possible and more so the case when identifying people. There are these unsaid, and in some cases said by rather ignorant people, social hierarchy’s when it comes to the human race. Keeping this in mind, there is so much more to a person that just their outer appearance that we first see when looking at a total stranger and assuming what their privilege may or may not be. Looking at a white male, he has two obvious privileges; he is male and he is white. But what if he opens his mouth and you realize he is gay? Does that take away his male/white privilege? Now, let’s think about if he speaks and we have no idea that he is gay, so we can assume that he is privileged and has never had to deal with any kind of discrimination.  Does that mean that he is the oppressor and the oppressed? He has to be; there’s simply no way someone can be one or the other, there are layers to people and this is one of the reasons Intersectionality is so relevant and important to society becoming more conscious on the grand scheme of race, gender, and sexual orientation. This is not to say that privilege and oppression cancel each other out but rather to acknowledge a situation many find themselves in.

And just for fun, what would you assume about myself?