When Disadvantages Collide

Supporters of Clinton and the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, for example, do not forcefully disavow the support of voters who say they will never vote for a black man. Obama does not systematically try to kick out misogynists -- and turn away voters who say they will not vote for someone as old as McCain.

Our focus on unfair disadvantages rather than unfair advantages may be understandable, but it causes us make our own group's disadvantages the problem -- when the problem is actually unfairness itself.

Right from the time of the suffragettes, the simplest way to see the problem with thinking about race, gender, age and social class in unidimensional terms is to consider what happens to people at the intersection of competing disadvantages: In the case of race and gender, women of color have invariably found themselves in a bind.

In 1851, Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech was a call to think about the effects of racism and sexism at the same time. In 1913, black suffragette Ida B. Wells-Barnett had to crash a march in Washington aimed at winning women the right to vote -- she had been asked to stay out or stay in the back after organizers decided to allow the march to be segregated.

In the Democratic nomination battle, black women have found themselves in a less tragic but similar bind. Whether you are talking about Obama supporters such as Oprah Winfrey, or Clinton supporters such as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Crenshaw said, black women are accused of treachery: Clinton supporters are accused of being race traitors and Obama supporters are accused of being traitors to their sex.

The real question, with the suffragettes or with those in the current political race, comes down to whether groups that face discrimination focus their disappointment and resentment at discrimination -- or at each other.

"Who do you blame, who are you angry at?" Crenshaw asked. "When you have a feminist who says, 'I will be damned if Sambo gets in before me,' she is mad at him."