Preface

During the interim of the first to the second edition, intersectionality and Critical Race Theory (CRT) have gone from being a specific set of methodological and theoretical underpinnings in the academic disciplines of law and the social sciences to being a politicized battleground in the popular press, social media, and elections. Those on the right have been emboldened by Republican messages and the cult-like MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) followers of Donald Trump, who is himself involved in several trials for violating secrecy provisions and vote tampering, and has already been convicted of sexual assault and tax evasion. There are ongoing trials, and convictions, of people in the mob who broke into Congress on January 6, 2021, attacked police, and attempted to prevent a congressional vote on the 2020 election.

Today there is a hostile intellectual climate seldom experienced in the United States, at least since the days of McCarthy and the witch hunts. Both online and in person, individuals are being targeted and threatened for their political beliefs. The current right wing discredits intersectionality and Critical Race Theory as specific instances of what they call “woke” agendas and “cultural Marxism.” Zionists from a range of political persuasions have claimed intersectionality is antisemitic (Puar 2023). Propaganda has led people to believe CRT is being taught in grade school. Faculty have been singled out for what they teach and publish. Faculty, students, politicians, protesters, and activists have been “doxed,” meaning their photographs, personal addresses, and phone numbers, and names of family members, have been circulated on social media and in some cases on billboards (Wilson 2023). Faculty have also been attacked physically. A physical attack on a gay faculty member happened on the campus of Arizona State University where I taught for 25 years (Quinn 2023). Simultaneously, there has been an explosion of hatred and hate crimes against LGBTQ persons, people of color, immigrants, and members of non-Christian religions. As the Israel–Gaza War broke out, a 71-year-old landlord in Illinois attacked his Palestinian Muslim tenants, critically wounding the mother and stabbing to death her six-year-old son (Diaz et al. 2023). Despite the Black Lives Matter protests, African Americans continue to be assaulted and killed by police in numbers far exceeding their proportion of the US population.

It is not just in the US that xenophobia, intolerance, and hatred of the “other” are increasing. Hate crimes are increasing globally. Migrants and asylum seekers from Latin America, Africa, and South Asia are on the move, seeking to escape climate change, political violence, and war. In Australia, a proposal to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution was rejected by a substantial margin (Zhou 2023). The UK enacted a law to bar people from seeking asylum if they arrive in small boats (Syal & Stacy 2023). It has also threatened to send refugees to Rwanda, no matter what country they hail from (Adam 2023). Anti-immigrant protests occur in Eastern and Southern Europe; France has barred the wearing of abayas in school (Goksedef 2023).

Attacks on people perceived to be different are not limited to higher education or activists. State bans have been levied against specific books in public and school libraries. Resources used by primary school teachers with frameworks that are inclusive of marginalized groups, particularly those written by or about members of the LGBTQ communities and people of color, and about the history of the United States that “might make students uncomfortable,” have been banned as well (Lieberman et al. 2017). Two pillars of civil rights in the United States have been removed by the Supreme Court: Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed various practices prevalent in states with histories of denying Black people the vote, was voided. Gerrymandered districts, poll taxes, and other impediments to voting rights were implemented almost immediately. The Supreme Court recently also voided “affirmative action” policies which had sought to increase student diversity on campus and hire faculty from marginalized groups. University projects perceived as promoting inclusivity, multiculturalism, or diversity have lost public funding – especially in states with conservative majorities. “Wokeness” was a term created to acknowledge social inequalities such as racism, sexism, and LBGTQ discrimination. It has been turned upside down and used as a weapon by right-wing politicians who claim to be silenced and canceled by the ideology. They argue wokeness is an attempt to delegitimize US history and its institutions.

The backlash occurred with the rise of authoritarian leaders. Accompanying the right-wing politics was the normalization of white supremacy, which lessened the inhibitions some might have had in acting upon hatred of feminists, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, and the disabled. This backlash was stoked by Trumpism, which legitimated “protectionism, isolationism mingled with militaristic bluster,” science-denial claims of fake news in response to evidence-based facts, anti-immigration sentiment, police brutality, and racist, sexist, and homophobic activism (Murib 2020: 295). The Covid pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 became a flash point of cultural warfare. The Trump administration fueled hate crimes aimed at Asians by referring to Covid as the “Chinese virus” (Rogers et al. 2020). Wearing masks to protect against the virus became a badge of political identity. Trump’s speeches advocated police brutality and violence against political opponents; he urged police officers to use force when dealing with peaceful protesters (ABC News 2017). Following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, tear gas and rubber projectiles were used more frequently to disperse protesters, including the photo op at St. John’s Church in Washington, DC, that Trump staged after he had demanded governors deploy the National Guard against the peaceful demonstrators police had cleared (Colvin & Superville 2020). He encouraged the use of police in addressing the homelessness problem (Levin 2019) and called for the FBI to investigate Black protesters as “black identity extremists” (Fearnow 2019). Not just Trump supporters, but Congress and the highest courts in the land have discredited CRT and intersectional analyses of the historical and structural roots of domination and subordination. Understanding human systems theory is seen as a threat.

Simple mechanical systems and cybernetic systems are taught in specialized disciplines – engineering and computer science. Social systems theories such as colonialism, Marxism, Critical Race Theory, and intersectionality are to be banned. Even the sociological understanding of systems put forth by classical theorists such as Durkheim, Weber, and Talcott Parsons is minimized. This served to re-normalize racism, sexism, homophobia, and inequality. Critics, judges, and politicians misrepresent structural frameworks as anti-white and anti-democratic. Conservatives, as well as many liberals, argue that only a color-blind society can resolve past racial discrimination. Frequently, the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, and Kamala Harris as the 49th vice president of the United States, are hailed as evidence of the end of racial inequality. Facts that color-blind approaches do not address are the legacies of white supremacy and patriarchy that are deeply embedded in the political, economic, and social structure of the US.

Attacks are largely fueled by intentional misconceptions distorting intersectional theory and methods as inherently pitting people of color against white people and women against men. Political conservatism argues that intersectionality places people of color and non-heterosexual people in privileged positions, receiving special treatment and embracing themselves as oppressed and as victims. Many conservatives view intersectionality as not only naming a hierarchy of oppression but viewing white straight cisgender men as offensive. For instance, Andrew Sullivan (2017) argued intersectionality was like a religion that:

Misunderstanding intersectionality as focusing on issues of identity and representation led Sullivan to assume the term to have an inherently divisive nature. However, the concept isn’t against anyone; it provides both theories and methodologies for a comprehensive/inclusive analysis of the structural, historical, and systemic features maintaining discrimination and inequality in the face of attempts at social change.

Two years of Covid exacerbated social and economic disruption and changes in everyday activities; it exposed social inequalities, and the ways different families, communities, and nation states were impacted. Interruptions occurred in how we work, play, learn, and interact with others. It did not take intersectional theory for many Americans to became aware of the lack of affordable healthcare, the absence of a living wage for all workers, high rent costs, costly childcare, consequences of the gender wage gap, and...