Intersectionality Matters!

Over the last year, the Right has ignited a widespread disinformation campaign around Critical Race Theory -- and mainstream media is fueling the fire. Mentions of CRT in the news grew exponentially this past year, with journalists often framing the conversation around education censorship as an equal debate between supporters and opponents of anti-equality legislation. And despite CRT’s well-documented history of emerging in 1989 with a clear and fixed definition, the media have decided to play in the Right’s disinformation campaign by allowing a distortion of the concept’s meaning in exchange for views.

On this episode, Kimberlé meets with veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien to unpack mass media’s decision to legitimize faux debate, outline the consequences of this debate on racial justice and democracy, and chart a path forward for journalists who aspire to do better.

With:

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN - CEO of Soledad O’Brien Productions; Anchor and Producer, The Hearst Television political magazine program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien”

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)

Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Co-produced by Ashley Julien

Supported provided by Destiny Spruill, Rebecca Scheckman, and the African American Policy Forum

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

Over the past year, Critical Race Theory has been increasingly misrepresented by the Right in an organized, widespread effort to stifle racial justice and gender equity, and weaken our multiracial democracy. In response to these attacks, AAPF held a 5-day Critical Race Theory Summer School in mid-August to educate participants about the origins, principles, and insights of Critical Race Theory, and to chart a path forward.

On this episode, we bring you a conversation that took place on the first day of Summer School, which features some of the leading thinkers in the field of Critical Race Theory. Together, the panelists tell the story of CRT came to be, explore what it teaches us about the world, and discuss it can now help us protect the very existence of critical thinking about race.

With:

ANTHONY COOK - Professor of Law, Georgetown; Author, The Least of These: Race, Law and Religion in American Culture

DANIEL MARTINEZ HOSANG - Associate Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration, Yale; Author, Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives

GLORIA LADSON-BILLINGS - Pedagogical theorist & educator; Author, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children

GARY PELLER - Professor of Law, Georgetown; Author, Critical Race Consciousness

ROBERT A. WILLIAMS, JR - Professor of Law, University of Arizona; Author, Savage Anxieties: The Invention of Western Civilization

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)

Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Supported provided by Destiny Spruill, Ashley Julien, Rebecca Scheckman, and the African American Policy Forum

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

When we think about the history of Black athletic resistance, we don't tend to think of Black women athletes like Wyomia Tyus, Rose Robinson, or Wilma Rudolph, who have all taken great risks to speak out against racial injustice. On this episode, Kimbelé is joined by Layshia Clarendon and Sydney Colson of the WNBA, Demario Davis of the New Orleans Saints, and civil rights icon Dr. Harry Edwards to celebrate the achievements of today’s Black women athletes, reflect on the history of athletic activism, and imagine the power that lies in collective action and athletic solidarity.

With:

LAYSHIA CLARENDON - WNBA player, leading advocate for trans, non-binary and LGBTQ+ athletes, and the first vice president of the WNBA Players Association

SYDNEY COLSON - WNBA player, member of the WNBA’s Social Justice Council, and a leading voice in the WNBA #SayHerName initiative

DEMARIO DAVIS - Linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, member of the Players Coalition, recipient of the Bart Starr Award for outstanding character on the field, at home, and in the community

DR. HARRY EDWARDS - Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, founder of the field of study known as the Sociology of Sports, and founder of the Olympic Project for Human Rights movement

Special thanks to the Players Coalition (@playerscoalition) for making this event possible

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Supported provided by Amarachi Anakaraonye, Rebecca Scheckman, Destiny Spruill, and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

On today’s episode, Kimberlé and a group of leading champions for equitable healthcare take us behind the “white coat” of medical racism, and explore its disproportionate impact on Black women and girls. Guests share their own stories being mistreated and ignored as patients, and reflect on the struggles they’ve endured as Black woman doctors working in a medical system with roots in eugenics and racialized violence. The conversation analyzes the lessons learned from the tragic case of Dr. Susan Moore, examines how the experiences of Black women in healthcare relate to historical racism and sexism, and asks what it would take to deconstruct the misogynoir that “lurks behind the white coat.”

With:

Dr. Karen Scott, epidemiologist, educator and obstetric doctor;

Dr. Gail Wyatt, professor at UCLA, psychologist, and board certified sex therapist;

Dr. Alisha Liggett, board certified family medicine doctor with a clinical practice based in New York City;

Dr. Joia Crear Perry, the founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative.

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

This episode was co-produced by Amarachi Anakaraonye

Supported provided by Rebecca Scheckman, Destiny Spruill, and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

The murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins by Soon Ja Du, a convenience store owner in 1991 became one of the flashpoints for the LA uprisings the following year. Yet while Latasha’s killing happened just 13 days after the Rodney King beating, her story garnered little lasting attention. On this episode of Intersectionality Matters, Kimberlé sits down with Sophia Nahli Allison, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary short “A Love Song for Natasha” (available on Netflix), to discuss the film, Latasha's story, and the role of art in bringing intersectional stories to life.

This episode includes audio from the following:

- “LA 92”, a National Geographic documentary

- “A Love Song for Latasha” (Netflix)

- AAPF’s 2017 panel discussion on Latasha Harlins at the Hammer Museum, featuring Priscilla Ocen and Brenda Stevenson

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Support provided by Amarachi Anakaraonye, Rebecca Scheckman, Destiny Spruill, and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

With Bryan Stevenson, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Ruha Benjamin, and David Blight

In the second half of a two-part episode on the stories that shape our understanding of America, Kimberlé Crenshaw and special guests explore the ways that film and other technologies have reproduced and popularized these dominant stories. The episode examines Hollywood’s role in writing and rewriting history, and asks how we can begin writing new stories that tell the full story of us.

With:


RUHA BENJAMIN- Professor of American Studies, Princeton University; Author, Race After Technology

DAVID BLIGHT - Professor of American History, Yale University; Author, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

BRYAN STEVENSON - Founder and Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative; Author, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

VIET THANH NGUYEN- Professor of American Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California; Author, The Sympathizer

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Support provided by Amarachi Anakaraonye, Rebecca Scheckman, Destiny Spruill, and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

In part one of a special two-part episode that asks, “What’s the story of America, and how can it be told differently?” Kimberlé Crenshaw sits down with a panel of esteemed thinkers and storytellers to examine the origins, implications and failings of America’s grand narratives. The conversation delves into the stories that drove the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and those that informed liberal responses to it. How did the stories that shape our understanding of America get established in the first place, and what histories got buried in the process? In what ways have storytelling industries like Hollywood helped construct myths of American innocence? All that and more.

With:


RUHA BENJAMIN- Professor of American Studies, Princeton University; Author, Race After Technology

DAVID BLIGHT - Professor of American History, Yale University; Author, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

BRYAN STEVENSON - Founder and Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative; Author, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

VIET THANH NGUYEN- Professor of American Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California; Author, The Sympathizer

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced and edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Support provided by Amarachi Anakaraonye, Rebecca Scheckman, Destiny Spruill, and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

In this post-inauguration roundtable, Kimberlé and her guests grapple with the events of the past month, and contemplate the crossroads that the country now finds itself in. As we prepare for four years of Democratic leadership, how must we organize ourselves in order to fight for a more just future, rather than merely a return to the past? And what becomes possible when we embrace a political agenda that centers intersectionality as a means for achieving that future?

With:


BARBARA ARNWINE - President and Founder, Transformative Justice Coalition

KIM FOXX - State's Attorney for Cook County, Illinois

JOIA CREAR-PERRY - Founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative

KIRSTEN WEST SAVALI - Senior director of content at iONE Digital


Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)

Produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine

Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Rebecca Scheckman

Additional support provided by Myles Olmsted, Nicole Young and the African American Policy Forum

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by a panel of veteran UTB guests to unpack the learnings from a year of pandemic, political revolution, and purported racial reckoning. and to help envision a path forward as our nation reels in the aftermath of a white supremacist insurrection. As the panelists contextualize the events of January 6th through a critical race theory lens, they discuss how a national history of appeasing white supremacist interests and denial of racial terror have laid the groundwork for our present reality. Furthermore, they explore what the new Biden administration must consider in order to truly address white supremacist terror at its root.

With:


CAROL ANDERSON - Professor of African American Studies, Emory; Author, White Rage


DAVID BLIGHT - Professor, Yale University; Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

ANOA CHANGA - Electoral justice reporter and organizer; Host of “The Way with Anoa”

JOE LOWNDES - Professor, University of Oregon; Co-author of Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity


Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine


Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Rebecca Scheckman


Additional support provided by Myles Olmsted, Nicole Young and the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast

In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by a panel of scholars and civil rights leaders to explore the impact of the Trump administration’s “Equity Gag Order,” and the president’s crusade against racial justice and gender equity. The conversation includes insights from leaders of the National Fair Housing Alliance and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund about how the Equity Gag Order’s list of “prohibited concepts” has impaired their work, as well as a discussion of the importance of narrative and storytelling and how the Trump administration has engaged in historical revisionism in their attacks on racial. As the panelists explore how we can fight back against the Equity Gag Order and how to pressure the Biden administration to rescind it on day one, they also place the order in historical context as part of a long tradition of state repression of civil rights movements.

With:


CAROL ANDERSON - Professor of African American Studies, Emory; Author, White Rage


RACHEL GODSIL - Professor of Law, Rutgers; Co-Founder, Perception Institute

LAURA GOMEZ - Endowed Chair at UCLA Law; Professor in Sociology, Chicana & Chicano studies


CHARLES R. LAWRENCE III - Professor, William S. Richardson School of Law; Critical Race Theory pioneer


JANAI NELSON - Associate Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF)


LISA RICE - President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)


Produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine


Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Rebecca Scheckman


Additional support provided by the African American Policy Forum


Music by Blue Dot Sessions


Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters, @IMKC_podcast