intersectionality a call to action by Celine Leduc

intersectionality a call to action by Celine Leduc 

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw who teaches law at Columbia has been documenting the murder of women of African descent for over thirty years.  The double tragedy is that nothing is done to find the guilty, many of them have been killed by the police and their names are never published.  She puts a name and a face to those murdered women.  She developed the theory of intersectionality which describes the place women of African descent are socially.  Euro-American men get away literally with murder and racism. 

An Afro-American woman took a company to court for racism, she lost her case because the company hired women and Afro-Americans.  However, the office staff was made up of women who were of Euro-Americans and the Afro-American men worked in the factory. 

Some Euro-feminist group do speak out against violence towards Afro-American women.  However, they concentrate on the internal violence which is in their community and identify their men as the guilty one.  Their men are perceived erroneously as criminals which is what prison records show there are more Afro-Americans in jail than any other group except for First Nation young men.  In a way, Euro-American/Canadian women back their men and the police stats instead of working on POLICE violence. They do not point a finger at the POLICE and the need to change their mentality and need to be educated. Hence, nothing changes.

A similar culture exists in Canada Euro-feminists will look at violence in First Nation communities and in the Afro-Canadian instead of looking at POLICE VIOLENCE and cultural biases based on cultural assumptions and systemic Euro-male racism.  Yet, Euro-Feminist will not look at how the law has treated them and how those laws caused the deaths of thousands of women.

Idle No More and the Missing and Murdered women are First Nation initiatives that is pressuring the government of Canada for years. They have gotten recently some backing from Euro-Canadian women and the government opened an inquiry.  The women who are missing or murdered have no name, no faces they are unknown or unremembered y society.  We need to see a face to have a name, as these women have mothers, sisters, cousins and friends who care and want answers.  They may even have kids who wonder what happened to my mother.  The women of Valdor had their case dismissed not long ago for lack of proof, police harassment is real in Canada, it is part of profiling and based on prejudice: she is drunk, she was stoned, she wanted me I am entitled the police says same as the priest who raped women. 

A Euro-male Law made it legal to hunt down “witches” and to kill them, remember Salem witch trial and the Inquisition to rob women of their land and money. The legal system and the police did not recognized rape as a crime.  How many women were raped and even killed by their boyfriends or husband and the police never reacted? 

Euro-males have used words to divide women a by religion, ethnicity and skin tone: Muslim woman is murdered it is an honor crime – an Afro-American woman gets killed it is a femicide --- a First Nation woman gets murdered it is a murder and yet when a Euro-American or Canadian woman gets killed by a jealous husband or boyfriend it is a homicide or family violence. Truth be told they were all murdered be it by one of their men and by the POLICE (Afro-American/Canadian First Nation women) not as many Euro-Canadians.  Euro-feminist are following in the footsteps of Euro-Males and as women we must show empathy and solidarity with all women who are murdered and stop pointing a finger at their men and start looking at our males who make the law and impose it hence justifying legally their violence.