Forthcoming in Microaggressions and Philosophy, eds.

Lauren Freeman and Jeanine Weekes

Schroer

Racial Methodological Microaggressions – When good Intersectionality goes

bad

Within the current academic culture, a good analysis of any socially oppressive
phenomena must include some ‘nod’ towards intersectionality (be it a footnote, keyword, or
chapter). While the proliferation of intersectionality as a conceptual tool is a positive sign within
academia and social media, it is necessary to interrogate the ways in which this important tool is
being used and disseminated. The deployment of the term ‘intersectional’ has been used to calm
‘angry’ Black women, allay white women, and check off obligatory 'diversity buzzwords'. This
chapter analyzes the ways in which the term ‘intersectionality’ has become a buzzword and its
common deployment has mutated into another extension of anti-Black violence, specifically
misogynoir. I argue that this transfigured ‘intersectionality’ can be and often is used as an
academically systemic microaggression, specifically a racial methodological microaggression
(RMM). Claims such as ‘intersectionality should be universally applied...everyone has
intersecting identities...we’re all different,’ I argue, have warped the power and the utility of
intersectionality, and in certain instances can constitute a particular type of microaggression that
has yet to be discussed in the existing literature.

My aim within this chapter is to show the ways in which often the employment of
intersectionality has become a microaggression. This powerful tool, when misused and
misunderstood, not only fails to serve its purpose, but it directly perpetuates the very problems it
aims to uncover and remedy. Distortion can subtly and insidiously diminish intersectionality's
power, silence and erase Black Women, and can even become an ideological weapon against
Black Women, thereby alienating us from our own work. When intersectionality is employed as
a microaggression, it is uniquely egregious because it has the faux appearance of inclusivity and
wokeness. Citations to Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins are made, but with
insufficient knowledge of the theory of oppression. This enables the anti-Black
microaggressions to now be bonafide, normalized, and unquestioned, which makes the
microaggressions within these cases harder to detect.

This chapter will proceed as follows: in section I, I elaborate upon what intersectionality
is as a conceptual tool, outlining what I firmly believe intersectionality to encompass, but I also
address other (including Black feminist) concerns of intersectionality – particularly the notion
that intersectionality is solely a Black feminist concept. In the section II, I introduce and develop
the concept of RMMs. In section III, I provide two examples of RMMs and analyze and evaluate
them. Specifically, I argue that the co-opting of intersectionality that occurs within these cases
warps the conceptual tool. That is, it takes a significant and salient theoretical and practical

1
methodology and turns it into a force that harms the very people it was created to help. I
conclude in Section IV with some pedagogical suggestions and ethics of citation concerning
intersectionality in order to curtail this type of microaggression.

I. Intersectionality is…
What exactly is intersectionality? Is it a heuristic? An analytic tool? A framework? A
methodology? A political stance? A practice? Most academics, allies, and activists have heard
the term and probably use it themselves, but it is an evasive term insofar as there doesn’t seem to
be a standard uniform textbook definition that everyone agrees upon. This section aims to clear
up a bit of the mystery and vagueness as to what is meant (or should be meant) when we use the
term ‘intersectionality’ by giving a prescriptive account of the term. This section also addresses
a few of the criticisms that are often lodged against employing intersectionality as a tool to
examine and curtail oppression.

Intersectionality’s narrative usually begins with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s coining the term in
1989. She conceived it to be

a prism to bring to light dynamics within discrimination law that weren’t being
appreciated by the courts. … In particular, courts seem to think that race
discrimination was what happened to all black people across gender and sex
discrimination was what happened to all women, and if that is your framework,
of course, what happens to black women and other women of color is going to
be difficult to see (Coaston 2019).

However, the seeds for analyzing, discussing, and dismantling oppression in an intersectional
manner were laid much earlier and by a variety of folks, even if they did not have the term to
describe what they were doing. I will primarily focus on the genealogy of the concept via Black
feminist thinkers.1 Around the same time as Crenshaw’s initial articles on the topic (1989,
1991), Collins formulated the concept of “matrix of domination” in order to capture the ways in
which “intersecting oppressions are actually organized” (2000, 21). Within the second edition of
Black Feminist Thought, Collins states intersectionality and its frameworks “remind us that
oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that oppressions work together in
producing injustice” (ibid., 21). The matrix of domination, on the other hand, maps out these
different oppressions and highlights some of the “domains of power” that can occur across
oppressions. Collins emphasizes both the structural (i.e. – matrix) as well as the experiential (i.e.
– intersecting) dimensions of oppression. It is not merely structural forces that constitute one’s
1
There are multiple reasons for this move, including but not limited to: 1) all of my cases of mutated
intersectionality involve Black women, 2) due to the “controlling images” (Collins 2010) pertaining to Black
women, we are often seen as not ‘playing well with others’ when engaging in intersectional discussions, and 3)
space and time limitations. For other genealogies which include Indigenous and Chicana feminist theory, please see
Cotera (1976), Rifkin (2011), Collins and Bilge (2016), Moraga and Anzaldua (1983), Driskill et al. (2011), and
Moreno (1973).

2
social positioning, but also the experiences of the individual. That is to say, an account that only
focuses on the structural does not adequately trace the unique and varying experiences of a
particular individual who exists within the matrix. Prior to Collins, Beal (1969) articulated a
concept of “double jeopardy” to illustrate the constraints of Black women given racism and
sexism, because “[a]s blacks they suffer all the burdens of prejudice and mistreatment that fall on
anyone with dark skin,” but “[a]s women they bear the additional burden of having to cope with
white and black men” (1969, 146). However, Beal’s conception was heavily criticized for being
additive and not adequately addressing the ways in which being a Black woman is not simply
being Black and a woman.2 Blackness does not stop where gender identity begins, but the two
are held simultaneously co-constituting one another.3

The credit for the notion of interlocking systems within the history of intersectionality
often goes to The Combahee River Collective (CRC), who call for an “integrated analysis and
practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis
of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives” (2015, 232). Dotson remarks that the
CRC, within this passage, conceives of oppression as both “multiple, interlocking systems” and
“as a holistic, simultaneous experience” (2014, 47). The CRC touches not only on a system-
based theory of oppression, but also aims to “track the range of jeopardization one faces given
different readable social identities” (2014, 50). Oppressions are structural, but individually
experienced.4 May (2012) and Cooper (Britney 2017) have both asserted that Anna Julia Cooper
was a Black woman intellectual who laid some of the seedlings for the concept of
intersectionality. Anna Julia Cooper emphasizes that “[o]nly if the black woman can say ‘when
and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and
without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me’” (1988,
31). Here she can be seen articulating the need for an interlocking notion of oppression that
includes both race and gender. If Black women are not free, then neither are Black peoples. Not
only is this an interlocking approach to oppression analysis, but here again, we can see the thread
of not only examining structural or single axis oppression, but also, as Dotson phrases it, the
individualized jeopardization of being a Black woman (Dotson 2013). As Black women living
in a white supremist patriarchal society, we share some common oppressive themes, but the ways
we experience oppression and are subject to dangers are unique to each individual Black woman.
The individualized jeopardization of being a Black woman speaks to this shared, yet
individualized experience that each Black woman faces.

2
I largely disagree with the reading that Beal was being additive, but due to space limitations I will not delve into
why I find such a reading incorrect.
3
If even such a thing is even possible. More will be said later within this section.
4
This is partly why Dotson states that “oppression is a multistable phenomenon" given that “it admits of an open
range of ‘topographic’ possibilities” (2014, 51). There is no singular way to understand oppression, nor is there a
single way that oppression manifests and maintains itself.

3
 With a truncated academic history5 of intersectionality, we can engage Crenshaw’s
popular conception. Within “Mapping the Margins,” Crenshaw iterates that she conceives of
intersectionality as a “provisional concept linking contemporary politics with postmodern
theory” (1991, 1244). She further states that

the concept does engage dominant assumptions that race and gender are essentially
separate categories. By tracing the categories to their intersections, I hope to suggest a
methodology that will ultimately disrupt the tendencies to see race and gender as
exclusive or separable. While the primary intersections that I explore here are between
race and gender, the concept can and should be expanded by factoring in issues such as
class, sexual orientation, age and color (1991, 1244-1245 n.9).6

Here again, the notion that structural and individualized experiences need to play a salient role in
how we conceive of intersections. The task of “tracing the categories to their intersections” is
directly calling us to acknowledge both the structural and the individual lived experiences. In
short, oppression is complex, and intersectionality can serve as a methodology7 to trace the
oppressive systems that place individual/collective lives in jeopardy.

Crenshaw has articulated that intersectionality is not merely a methodology, but also an
analytical tool, when used in particular contexts.8 Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge outline
the general notion of intersectionality as follows:

Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people,
and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can
seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in
diverse and mutually influencing ways. When it comes to social inequality, people’s lives and
the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single
axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and
influence each other. Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the
complexity of the world and themselves (2016, 2).

5
I say “academic” here as a way to distinguish between a history that is accepted by white academia and our history,
which includes sources that are often unable to be ‘acceptably’ cited.
6
Crenshaw sells herself a bit short here. She states that she is only focusing on race and gender, but within the
article she also addresses the intersections of citizenship and poverty.
7
Belle (2011) criticizes Nash (2008) for critiquing intersectionality due to the lack of “a clearly defined
intersectional methodology (2008, 3). Belle states “Crenshaw and Collins in particular do not claim that
intersectionality is a methodology. Rather, it is often described as a theoretical framework, lens, paradigm, or
heuristic device” (2011, 280). Belle is correct that both Collins and Crenshaw have depicted intersectionality as the
latter list, but I disagree with Belle that it is not a methodology. As seen from the cited footnote, Crenshaw does
include methodology in the description of intersectionality.
8
A methodology when put into action, but an analytic tool when used to examine higher order knowledge claims.

4
 According to Collins and Bilge, the core ideas within an intersectional framework are
social inequality, power, relationality, social context, complexity, and social justice. Each facet
of the framework utilizes genealogy, practice, and praxis.9 However, it is important to note that
these facets are neither separate nor distinct from one another. Relationality requires one to
adequately address not only social context, but also complexity, social justice, power, and social
inequality. All facets, under Collins and Bilge’s conception of intersectionality, are
interdependent upon one another. One cannot simply run through this list of six core ideas, wipe
their hands and pat themselves on the back for completing an intersectional analysis. The
emphasis on relationality is not to emphasize differences of oppression and social injustices, but
to find the interconnections among them. And these differences are not mutually exclusive – that
is to say, oppression does not manifest in one particular domain. It is not an either/or; rather,
“relationality embraces a both/and frame” (Collins and Bilge 2016, 27, emphasis in original). 10
Each core aspect requires the others. For example, a proper examination of social context
mandates that one is “aware that particular historical, intellectual, and political contexts shape
what we think and do” (Collins and Bilge 2016, 28). This includes a sense of the follies of past
movements addressing oppression. One need not look too far to find pertinent examples.

The employment of notions such as “sisterhood” often fails as a unifying political

catalyst; moreover, the call for strict unification equalizes the different oppressions that women
face. bell hooks states: “It was this logic that led white women activists (along with black men)
to suggest that black women were so ‘strong’ they did not need to be active in feminist
movement” (1984, 45). The erasure of race in early/second wave feminism created an alienating
environment, one which posited white middle-class women as ‘true’ heralds of political activism
working towards gender equality – inviting Black women and other women of color to join the
cause. This ‘bonding’ over common identities of victimization and oppression excluded many
women rather than uniting them towards political goals, which made many Black women reject
the term “feminist” in favor of others, like “womanist.” Identity politics and the politics of
recognition failed. Rather than adhering to a strict identity politics model, intersectionality shifts
the focus to coalitions, which enables us to better see inter/intra-group power differentials.
Crenshaw proposes that “the intersectional experiences of women of color disenfranchised in
prevailing conceptions of identity politics does not require that we give up attempts to organize
as communities of color. Rather, intersectionality provides a basis for reconceptualizing race as
a coalition between men and women of color…or a coalition of straight and gay people of color”
(1991, 1299). Again, intersectionality can be the catalyst for provisional coalitions. It provides a

9
Genealogical accounts of intersectionality cannot be just citational – i.e. knowing the ‘proper’ academic
attributions. Such accounts must also be rooted in oral histories, trials, and tribulations of oppressed people who
then developed particular practices in order to survive the oppressive terrain in which they found themselves. Given
this, praxis can be understood to be the blending of not only the necessary practices, but also the acknowledgement
of both the academic standard citations as well as more non-traditional/non-academic sources of knowledge.
10
For example, giving an account of Black women’s oppression must at a minimum look at both anti-Black racism
and sexism as opposed to either sexism or anti-Black racism.

5
means to locate differences amongst oppressive systems and it “anticipates, rather than arrives at,
the normative or theoretical goals often imputed to it” (Carastathis 2014, 60). Merely aligning
oneself with an intersectional methodology or using the heuristic does not yield truly
intersectional results. More is needed. And that is the issue that concerns me most within this
chapter – namely, when employing intersectionality becomes warped and deployed as another
tool for ‘white talk,’ a unique microaggression can occur. Ultimately, “what makes an analysis
intersectional is not its use of the term ‘intersectionality,’ nor its being situated in a familiar
genealogy, nor its drawing on lists of standard citations.” The focus should be on “what
intersectionality does rather than what intersectionality is” (Cho et al. 2013, 795). Prima facia,
one only needs to look at the calls for inclusion, diversity, and intersectionality to say that
intersectionality has done good work. Hiring committees are more cognizant of the diversity
within their departments, college activist groups more in tune with building coalitions with other
organizations, and it is becoming difficult to publish on socio-political issues without some kind
of nod to intersectionality. Intersectionality seemingly has arrived, but should we all break out
the champagne? Within Section II, I articulate the ways in which the deployment of a mutated
conception of intersectionality manifests microaggressions. Moreover, the espousal of a mutated
notion of intersectionality can manifest into what I deem to be an RMM.

I want to clearly state that I do not believe that intersectionality as a tool and a practice is
forbidden for non-Black women to use. It is an extremely powerful tool with which we can
examine oppression. With that being said, I also believe that we should recognize its genealogy
in order to more fully grasp the work the conceptual tool is doing. 11 Critics like Calvin Warren,
for example, have come away with the impression that intersectional analyses marks “queerness
and blackness are structurally aligned such that they become somewhat interchangeable forms of
abstraction or are intelligible through each other…Put differently, the intersectional approach
makes epistemological claims by presenting blackness and queerness (and other forms of
difference) as ontologically equivalent” (2017, 409) and stemming from the same root cause.12 I,
however, have yet to come across a Black woman intersectional scholar who actively states that
all modes of oppression are equivalent to one another.13 Equalizing all forms of oppression is
not an accurate depiction of what intersectionality is trying to do. Gender oppression is not the

11
I take issue with the assumption that intersectionality can be so easily bracketed off – as in, the call for running an
intersectional analysis on ableism would be different than running an intersectional analysis on misogynoir. A
robust intersectional analysis on either of these would encompass the other. There are disabled Black women. And
some Black women are disabled. I speak more on this in the following sections.
12
Some critics of intersectionality even go so far as to say that by incorporating identities such as gender with an
analysis on anti-Black racism, it becomes logically impossible to even examine anti-Black racism. This is because
the category of gender already has a built-in component of humanity – in order to have a gender, one must be
human. Anti-Black racism, on the other hand, is purported to rely on the assumption that Blacks are not people or
they are sub-human. Gender’s “assumptive logic…maintains that all women have the same gender. This
orientation of thought does more than render Black gender invisible or silent. It makes it conceptually impossible to
think of gender violence as orientating more than the realm of gender” (Douglas 2018, 115). For more on this, see
Nash (2019), Douglas (2018), Warren (2017), and Spillers (2003).
13
Warren also fails to cite any such case.

6
same as racial oppression; rather gender oppression affects and intersects with racial oppression
in various and multifaceted ways.

The theory is also not overly concerned with identities qua identities. The incorrect
analogy that I’ve all too often heard for intersectionality runs something akin to this: we all have
individual aspects of ourselves that make us who we are; I am a philosopher, a mother, a Black
person, a woman, unilaterally deaf, a retro video game nerd, a sunscreen connoisseur, a
Whovian; and all of these aspects of myself intersect to make me, me. While yes, all of these
different ‘identities’ make me who I am, this example does not illustrate intersectional theory.
Even though the CRC, Beal, Crenshaw, and Collins use the term ‘identity,’ it does not correlate
with identities qua identities. The identities being referenced regarding intersectionality must be
linked with systems of oppression, because it is a theory that is designed to illustrate truths
regarding oppression. Me being obsessive about and deep into the sunscreen market does not
factor into my oppression.

By giving a detailed, albeit truncated, prescriptive account of intersectionality I hope to

lay out the theoretical framework that, I argue, is being mutated and then deployed in such a way
that not only obscures the conceptual tools’ power but constitutes a specific kind of
microaggression. I argue that using intersectionality in an authoritative manner by certain
individuals and institutions, specifically by either neglecting or mutating its diverse histories,
which in turn diminishes its power, is a microaggression that is separate and distinct from
previously theorized forms of microaggressions (such as microassaults, microinsults,
microinvalidations, or environmental microaggressions). In order to make this case, first I
introduce what I mean by RMM.

II. Racial Methodological Microaggressions

The first generational taxonomy of microaggressions defined racial microaggressions as
akin to aversive racism “in that they generally occur below the level of awareness of well-
intentioned people” (Sue 2010). The umbrella category of racial microaggressions encompassed
three variations:
• Microinsult - “interpersonal or environmental communications that convey stereotypes,
rudeness, and insensitivity and that demean a person’s racial, gender, or sexual
orientation” (Sue 2010, 31)
• Microassault – “conscious, deliberate, and either subtle or explicit racial, gender, or
sexual-orientation biased attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors that are communicated to
marginalized groups through environmental cues, verbalizations, or behaviors” (Sue
2010, 30)
• Microinvalidation – “communications or environmental cues that exclude, negate or
nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of certain groups, such
as people of color, women, and LGBTs” (Sue 2010, 37)

7
Each variation potentially can feed into a macro-level environmental microaggression, which
“are manifested on systemic and environmental levels” (Torino et al. 2019b, 312). If enough
variations of compounded microaggressions are present, then an individual may experience
systemic microaggressions. 14

With heavily structural instances of microaggressions, Sue construes these instances as

environmental microaggressions, which “refers to the numerous demeaning and threatening
social, educational, political, or economic cues that are communicated individually,
institutionally, or societally to marginalized groups” (Sue 2010, 25). Environmental
microaggressions appear within hostile work environments or harmful campus climates where
marginalized individuals feel that they are not only devalued, but debased in detrimental ways.
Instances of racial environmental microaggressions include but are not limited to the lack of
woman of color professors, administrators, or even collegiate peers. Sue stresses that these types
of microaggressions differ from other sorts of microaggressions, such as microinsults,
microinvalidations, and microassaults because environmental microaggressions do not
necessitate direct interpersonal contact – that is to say, for an environmental microaggression to
occur, there does not have to be an interpersonal exchange. Rather than a particular individual
causing harm to a racially marginalized individual, it is the environment itself that is resulting in
the harm. For example, a departmental climate can be deemed as threatening for a Black student
just in virtue of them being the only Black body within said department. There need not be
microassaults such as “name-calling, mean comments, and threats” (Levchak 2018, 24) nor does
there need to be microinsults which include “statements or actions that indirectly belittle a person
of color” usually tied to racial stereotypes (Nadal 2008, 22) in order for a non-white person to
feel threatened within their environment. Conversely, microinvalidations are not necessary in
order for an environment to be deemed as hostile.

While I do not deny that racial environmental microaggressions, racial microassaults,

racial microinvalidations, or racial microinsults occur, I believe within the case of mutated
intersectionality, another microaggressive phenomena can occur: racial methodological
microaggressions. An RMM occurs when the following conditions are met: 1) a dominantly
situated person grossly misconstrues either a concept, methodology, or ideology that is primarily
created by marginalized people and 2) the misconstruction is done out of willful ignorance. Here
I am drawing on Pohlhaus Jr.’s conception of willful ignorance, which is a “dismissal and the
knower’s continued engagement in the world while refusing to learn to use epistemic resources
developed from marginalized situatedness” (2012, 722). Willful ignorance is not ignorance due

14
Torino et al. (2019b) propose a revised taxonomy where environmental microaggressions are separate from
“personal/interpersonal” microaggressions; however, they acknowledge that such a distinction “was already implicit
in the original taxonomy” (313). Though it is important note that neither the new or the original taxonomy (Sue
2010) incorporate ideology, despite addressing structural manifestations of microaggressions. More will be said on
this later.

8
to error, rather it is actively maintained by consciously or unconsciously15 refusing to take up
salient epistemic resources. The resources are available to the knower, but due to white
complicity and white ignorance (within the case of mutated intersectionality), epistemic agents
refuse to either engage with the resources or partake in the additional labor to adequately
understand the epistemic resources. Mills conceives of white ignorance16 as a framework that
manifests and reinforces racism as the norm within society. It is a framework that holds
instances of racial injustice as not something that is the exception or an anomaly — although the
framework argues that they are the exceptions to the case — but such instances are built into the
very fabric of society as we conceive it to be. Any racial injustices that occur within a system
framed by white ignorance is functioning as it should be operating, because racial oppression is
part of the essence of the system. Moreover, white complicity is the practice of actively
remaining ignorant to racial injustices “because this serves to sustain [whites] moral self-image”
(Applebaum 2008, 297). White ignorance and white complicity go hand in hand.

Microinsults and microinvalidations are often seen as “unintentional behavior” or

“outside the perpetrator’s awareness,” but I believe that an account needs to be given concerning
microaggressions that are committed when the penetrator has ample training (or even professes
to be an expert in the relevant domain) and access to epistemic resources, but still refuses to
properly utilize them (Torino et al. 2019a, 4). Under my account, which expands upon Sue’s
(2010) initial taxonomy and his revised taxonomy (Torino et al. 2019a), RMMs are
simultaneously structural and interpersonal. Structural, because they involve white complicity
along with white ignorance, yet interpersonal because an RMM often revealed via interpersonal
interaction. RMMs require a notion akin to environmental microaggressions. This is to say that
there are structural elements, but the microaggression happening within my concept is not
fundamentally about interpersonal interactions.

I find it useful within Sue’s conception of environmental microaggressions that direct

interlocutors are not necessary, whereas microassualts, microinsults, and microinvalidations
require interpersonal exchanges; however, with the case of ‘bad’ deployment of intersectionality,
I don’t believe that it is merely an environmental microaggression. Sue acknowledges that
environmental microaggressions can occur from a “stated philosophy such as ‘color blindness,’”
but within such a case as color blindness, the stated ideology is being created by the aggressor
themselves (2010, 25). What I believe to be separate and distinct with RMMs is that the “stated
philosophy” is not one that is being created, rather the philosophy, which in the scope of this

15
There is much debate as to whether willful ignorance is culpable ignorance. Due to limitations, I will not discuss
this here. For more on this debate, see Smith (1983), Husak (2010), Lynch (2016), and Wieland (2017).
16
The term ‘white ignorance’ is not implying that all white individuals are ignorant regarding anti-black racism, nor
does the term posit that black individuals are immune to such a framework. “White” is employed because the
framework was initially designed with racial dominance in mind. Mills acknowledges that white individuals may
not necessarily sign onto such a social contract; however, the white privilege that is produced through the
framework ‘white ignorance’ benefits all white individuals. The degree of privilege, however, will fluctuate once an
intersection analysis is utilized.

9
paper is intersectionality, is being mutated and warped to consciously or unconsciously support a
white washed agenda. This gives the appearance that the aggressor is indeed committed to the
values and social goods of intersectionality, but the aggressor is misconstruing the term to fit
their own narrative at the expense of racially marginalized people.

Willful ignorance rather than intent, under my account, is of incredible importance

because I believe that is primarily what distinguishes what’s happening in the cases below from
the other previously theorized conceptions of racial microaggressions, especially in determining
the harm that is occurring. Assuming that the cases of RMMs are indeed willful may come
across as an extremely strong stance; however, with the concept of intersectionality having been
so heavily theorized, I find it willfully ignorant to blatantly ignore the genealogical history of the
concept. A distinct factor within my account is “that ‘white superiority’ and ‘white narcissism’”
play a direct role in serving as a catalyst for not only racist environmental microaggressions, but
also racial microinsults and racial microinvalidations, which can carry over in a unique way
concerning methodologies.17 Mzinegizhigo-Kwe Bédard (2018) asserts that what is often
construed as ‘white guilt’ is actually ‘white narcissism,’ which I believe helps to explain some of
the microaggressions that are occurring within the examples outlined below. Within the next
section, I further breakdown the specific microaggressions that occurred with an eye towards
willful ignorance, which resulted in an RMM.

III. ‘Intersectional’ Microaggressions

With a working idea of the concept of RMM, I introduce two cases where we can see
precisely how this kind of microaggression often functions. These two examples where
intersectionality has been mutated and then deployed, resulting in an RMM against Black
women. Each of these cases fulfills the status of a microaggression in various, overlapping
ways.

Case #1: I am in a private group chat talking18 with several senior white feminist philosophers
about a feminist philosophy conference racial ‘mishap.’ One of the senior members
(person A) left the chat abruptly after I made a few comments regarding how senior
members handled the situation, especially considering that at the time of the incident, I
was a Black woman doctoral student surrounded by white senior members within the
profession. Person A proceeded to privately message senior member B, regarding my
“hostile” and “insensitive” behavior. I know this because person B returned to the group
chat to inform me that I was not taking an “intersectional approach to this touchy subject”
and this is why “intersectionality is so important, because [I] should have recognized

17
White superiority and narcissism occur “when some individuals of White European descent engage in actions to
generate a positive story that bolsters their poor self-image” (Mzinegizhigo-Kwe Bédard 2018, 83).
18
Trust me on this, but I do have the receipts.

10
 [my] social positionality relative to” Person A’s. I responded “that’s not what that tool
[intersectionality] is for.” I received the response “Well, it is.”
Case #2: On a panel entitled ‘Epistemic Diversity,’ one presentation attempts to quantify
intersectionality; however, the statistical model included proxies such as height, wearing
of hats, and respondent’s personal shirt preferences in addition to race and gender.
During the Q&A, I commented that some of their examples weren’t really the kinds of
identities that intersectionality is concerned with. The presenters responded
“Intersectionality is for everyone and every type of identity. Crenshaw uses identities.
Why wouldn’t you want this important work universally used?”

With some concrete examples of the sort of phenomena that I am attempting to illuminate
coupled with exegesis on intersectionality theory and a conceptual framework of RMMs, I can
now begin to make my argument that some of the misuse of intersectionality can be understood
as a microaggression, specifically an RMM. Within case #1, we have not only the
misunderstanding of what intersectional theory was designed to examine, the deployment of the
mutated intersectionality was also shrouded in connotations of the ‘angry Black woman’
stereotype. I needed to use an intersectional analysis in order to mitigate possible perceptions of
hostility and insensitivity toward a senior white woman’s feelings. This fits the conception of a
microinsult and microinvalidation because I was belittled and demeaned for being casted as the
‘angry Black woman’ who was overly curt and hurt someone’s feelings. Moreover, the
accusation that I should have utilized an intersectional analysis disempowers my stance, which
adds another layer to the microinvalidation.

Even if the ‘angry Black woman’ trope had not been used, what occurred in this case still
would qualify as a microaggression because of the disempowerment/demeaning factor. An
intersectional analysis, in Person B’s eyes, would have me be polite and realize that Person A’s
understanding of the world is different from my own because we have different identities. The
mutated intersectionality would have me recognize that we all face oppression, especially vis-à-
vis our shared gender. It would have me recognize that we all share experiences of sexism and it
would have required me to enact a sense of “sisterhood” - all of which I failed to do. So, to
Person B, I failed to adequately incorporate an intersectional approach to the situation. My
concerns were no longer addressed, because I failed to do the intersectional work. But “[t]his is
how whiteness reasserts itself, by sweeping the concerns of non-white women aside on the
mistaken assumption that we too can separate our gender from our race” (Hamad and Little,
2017). This key factor is what I believe distinguishes this case from merely being a microinsult
or a microinvalidation because willful ignorance allowed Person B to refuse to do the epistemic
labor to properly investigate the resources on intersectionality.

Neither microinsults, microinvalidations, nor environmental microaggressions alone can

give an account to the ways in which I was disempowered by a tool that was designed to
empower me. This does constitute an environmental microaggression, but rather than

11
manifesting an ideology that creates a hostile environment, what occurred was the subversion of
a richly theorized concept, which makes it something above and beyond a racial environmental
microaggression. Here we can see the RMM functioning on several levels: 1) there is a rewriting
of the concept by equivocating all identities qua identities which is then 2) deployed as a tool for
white women to use against Black women.19 RMMs can serve as a catalyst for other
microaggressions, such as microinsults, because within this case Black women even smart
enough to understand the concepts they themselves articulate. The structural microaggressions
leak into other spaces, which combined with microinvalidations and additional RMMs may
appear to be environmental, but they are carried out via the interpersonal, but are not
fundamentally about the interpersonal as they are in microinsults and microinvalidations.

Recall again, while intersectionality purports that oppressions are connected, what the
theory does not assert is that all oppressions are equivalent. The theory also stipulates that
oppressions are not easily segmented – I experience racism and sexism (along with several other
forms of oppression) simultaneously. To not only fail to see that, but to charge me with failing
to do the necessary intersectional work is an RMM. I believe what makes instances such as this
more insidious is that through co-opting intersectional language, it gives the speaker a sense of
being in the moral right, while still upholding systems of oppression. Such “discursive strategies
present negative views of out-groups as reasonable and justified while at the same time
protecting the speaker from charges of racism and prejudice” (Augoustinos and Every 2007,
124). Utilizing the ‘angry Black woman’ trope, while known to this group of senior women as
harmful and oppressive, was justified given my ‘failure’ to perform intersectionality and using
the language of intersectionality, frees both Person A and B from any accusations of racism.
Previously taxonomized accounts of microaggressions cannot properly account for the interplay
between the environmental or interpersonal microaggressions that occurred. RMMs can offer an
account of how both the structural (rewriting of the concept) and the interpersonal (using the
rewritten concept as a shield) can influence one another. Here, we have dominantly situated
individuals who professed to know the methodology/ideology (so again, this is distinct from
cases such as color blindness), yet failed to really know it due to willful ignorance.

Case #2 qualifies as a microaggression because here we also have instances of demeaning

and disempowering, which falls under the scope of microinvalidation. The response
“Intersectionality is for everyone and every type of identity. Crenshaw uses identities. Why
wouldn’t you want this important work universally used?” serves not only as a rejection of my
comment but rejects it in such a way as to unduly shift the burden of defense to me. This
specifically occurs with the latter half of the response – “Why wouldn’t you want this important
work universally used?” It was a question loaded with the implication that I do not want this
work proliferated (I do) and I do not want others to benefit from what intersectionality has to

19
This can lead to gaslighting if a Black woman were to attempt to use intersectionality to analyze/articulate her
experience.

12
offer. The mere deployment of such a dialectic tactic was demeaning, and it was disempowering
because the burden of proof shifted to a moral asymmetrical interaction. Not only is the theory
misunderstood in this case, but the misunderstanding was then flipped around in a way that
placed the onus on me to explain why I wouldn’t want everyone to end oppression. This was a
demeaning tactic to make it appear as though I did not want to widely share a moral good with
the rest of the community. The argumentative tactic shifted the burden of proof to me in an
inappropriate fashion, but it also subordinates my stance as an interlocutor with the on-looking
audience; thus, “controvert[ing] the goals of argumentative exchange” (Aikin and Talisse 2008,
532). Microaggressions within this case occurred on two fronts: 1) the belittling and demeaning
comments functioned to dismiss the reality and experiences of Black women which constitutes a
microinvalidation and 2) the argumentative tactics used constituted an RMM.

Within this case, the concept RMM can help illuminate the effects of willful ignorance
when directed towards a methodology. While I do not know the speaker personally, I suspect
that intersectionality was the theory examined because it is the in-vogue thing to do now.20 If a
paper, book project, or talk does not include something about intersectionality, it has a difficult
time being accepted. Theorists and activists are paradoxically making intersectional arguments
and citing the ‘necessary’ work without doing intersectional labor. The claims are made, and
obligatory boxes are checked, but no real work is being done. They’re talkin the talk, but ain’t
walkin the walk. Moreover, the ‘work’ that is being done can be, I argue, harmful.
Intersectionality does not refer to mere identities, so in that sense it is not universally applicable.

By coupling a microinvalidation with an RMM, the speaker can ‘save face’ that they are
not racist. As Collins and Bilge argue, social context is necessary to properly enact
intersectional theory. Addressing social context necessitates that one examines the origins and
genealogies of oppression. “Delinking the method of analysis from its genealogies and context
of production contributes to the ongoing erasure of subaltern histories and praxis” (The Santa
Cruz Feminist of Color Collective 2014, 33). The subject and the theory become disempowered,
which can lay the groundwork for even more instances of microinsults, microinvalidations, and
environmental microaggressions that become even more difficult to detect.

I do not deem the previously mentioned cases as just microinsults nor microinvalidations
because for instances of such microaggressions intent of the perpetrator does not play a very
salient role in determining the harm that is being done to the victim(s). Levchak states:
“Regardless of the ‘intent’ of the aggressor, what matters most is the impact that racist
microaggressions and macroaggressions have on the target” (2018, 21).21 Torino et al. (2019a)
even go as far as to define microinsults as “unintentional” (4). Torino et al. also claim that
microinvalidations are also “unintentional and usually outside the perpetrator’s awareness”

20
See Ahmed (2012).
21
See also Freeman and Stewart (2018).

13
(2019a, 4). However, they also state that “microinsults and microinvalidations may be
intentional, they are most likely unintentionally communicated by the majority of dominant
group members” (2019a, 5). I find the inconsistency pertaining to the intent of the perpetrator to
be deeply problematic, which further perpetuates the problem of the particular microaggressive
phenomena that I aim to highlight.

Articulating how ideology and mythology are incorporated and actualized by structural
microaggressions is a crucial next step in the conceptualization of microaggression, because the
stakes are high.22 Such high stakes are present for intersectionality specifically because “[w]hen
not joined to intersectional practice, intersectional intonations function as a kind of
credentialing” (Luft and Ward 2009, 17). Not only is the praxis lacking (inclusion/diversity does
not equate to intersectional), but the ideas of intersectionality are inadequately articulated.
Mentioning or nodding towards intersectionality gains credentials within the current academic
state. However, this gesturing amounts to an RMM due to the demeaning and perpetuation of
willful ignorance that creates a hostile work environment along with furthering miseducation and
disinformation. Microaggressions, as previously theorized, are often construed as being
unconsciously committed by individuals who are “well-intentioned people” (Sue 2010). Given
that there is adequate literature on intersectionality, coupled with the assertion that each
interlocutor within my cases profess to be an expert on intersectionality, I find it deeply
problematic to construe that such cases are ‘unconsciously committed’ and the intentions are
good, but still willfully ignorant. Cases such as these are why I have argued that another
classification should be added to the taxonomy of microaggressions. This phenomenon
constitutes a unique type of microaggression because the exposure to miseducation and
disinformation regarding Black women’s oppression can inflict not only emotional harm (i.e. –
feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, or stress), but also academic harm (i.e. – professional shaming,
classroom exclusion, hostile work/learning environments). Speaking directly in the context of
online interactions, Tynes et al. argue that “[m]is/disinformation is a dangerous form of online
racial microaggression that may provide the basis of more serious forms of racial discrimination
and hate” (2019, 203), but the argument extends beyond online platforms. RMMs have the
strong potential to create not only other forms of microaggressions, but other types of racial
discrimination.

V. Concluding Suggestions
By way of conclusion, because I still find incredible value in intersectional work, I offer a
few practical and pedagogical suggestions concerning intersectionality, which I believe, when
enacted, have the potential to truncate the RMMs discussed above. These are not meant to be a

22
Some work has been done to highlight intersectionality, such as Lewis et al. (2019) and Torino et al (2019b), but I
find the very definitions being used inaccurate and falling into what Tynes et al. (2019) deem to be
mis/disinformation.

14
complete checklist – as in, if you follow all of these steps, then you’ll completely avoid
committing a microaggression of the sort that I have been focusing on. I do not believe that any
one theory can eradicate all microaggressions, nor do I believe that any one approach can thwart
all systems of oppression. These suggestions are primarily directed towards white individuals23,
so if any of these do not apply to you, feel free to suggest them to others you know.

1. Abandon the Savior Narrative of Intersectionality

Intersectionality is often juxtaposed with ‘white feminism,’ and is herald as “the kind of
ethical, inclusive and complex feminism required for feminists to revive – and to complete –
their political project” (Nash 2019, 13). The story portrayed is that intersectionality is what’s
going to save feminism and release us all from oppression. It’s been given a savior like status.
If your feminism is not intersectional, then it’s bullshit. If a hiring committee fails to be
intersectional, then the hiring committee is faulty. If colleges and universities campuses are not
intersectional, then they are exclusionary. The more intersectionality, the better. But more is not
always better, especially when the ‘more’ is harming the very same folks the term was created to
help.

Juxtaposing intersectionality with white feminism, while historically accurate, has

become pragmatically problematic. One of the unfortunate consequences of this framing is that
for white women allying themselves theoretically with intersectionality, it’s a move that can all
too often distance them from whiteness. If executed in a similar fashion as the cases highlighted
above, then theoretical moves towards intersectionality become another version of ‘white talk.’24
Bailey outlines ‘white talk’ as a “’boomerang discourse’: I talk to you but come right back to
myself…in addition to its responsibility-evasive function, white talk also serves to construct the
speaker as an imagined non-racist self” (2015, 41-42). No wrong-doing has occurred, because
the white speaker has aligned herself with intersectionality, not that oppressive white-washed
version of feminism. And if met with any critique regarding their ‘intersectional’ analysis, it is
the critic who is not adequately deploying intersectionality and now being oppressive. White
talk seems to be the new parlance when engaging in discussions on intersectionality. This
‘boomerang effect,’ not only re-centers the white speaker, it also serves as an ethical chastising
to the critic, who unfortunately usually is a non-white woman.

2. Intersectionality, as practiced currently, is not an ethical good

This leads me to the second recommendation: we need to stop using the term as an
inherent ethical good. While I believe that intersectionality (and other theories highlighting the

23
One of the plethora of issues that arises while writing in a philosophical academic setting is that your audience
will largely be white.
24
For more on ‘white talk,’ see McIntyre (1997).

15
interlocking modes of oppression and jeopardization) is a useful and extremely powerful
conceptual tool, it means nothing if praxis is also not incorporated. This is not an ‘A for effort’
type endeavor. If the praxis does not accompany the theory, then the theory is warped to only be
a mere buzzword. Yet, even if the term is used as a buzzword, it is not innocuous. The
colonization of intersectionality creates harms, such as RMMs. The ‘leveling’ of all oppressions
as equal or equivalent obscures and diminishes certain power relations, which benefits only
specific groupings of people.

Although this approach is valid as a heuristic device, treating race, class, and gender as if
their intersection produces equivalent results for all oppressed groups obscures
differences in how race, class, and gender are hierarchically organized, as well as the
differential effects of intersecting systems of power on diverse groups of people (Collins
1998, 211, emphasis added).

Not only are the differences in how oppressions are produced and maintained skewed, but the
jeopardization of what it means to be a Black woman in America is also obscured. Collin states
“to be a Black woman is not the same as to be a White gay man or a working-class Latino”
(ibid). These are not equivalent oppressions in terms of the jeopardization, nor are they
equivalent collective experiences. While it pains me to interact with intersectionality in the
manner below’ to a certain extent I agree with Carastathis that “to some degree, the popularity of
intersectionality should be read through a white feminist desire to maintain racial innocence and
assert feminism's arrival at a ‘post-racial’ moment” (2014, 60). The proliferation, in my view, of
intersectionality has served as another way for individuals to distance themselves from
specifically anti-Black racism. Moreover, this type of distancing, as I have argued, is a distinct
form of microaggression - RMM.

3. Citations matter, but reading is fundamental

Finally, I am all for citing Black women and other non-white women. Keep doing it. But
it is salient to not only cite us, but to also read us. I mean really read our work. Don’t just read
the work that everyone is citing, especially if it checks off a ‘diversity’ box. As McKenzie
accurately states “Diversity is easy. You just throw a few different kinds of people together in
one place and voila! – you’ve got diversity” (2014, 159). Dealing with oppression, which
intersectionality was designed to address, is much messier. Read who Crenshaw cited. Read our
blogs, pamphlets, tweets – not everything that we write of value is published within academically
bonafide settings.

16
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