This year marks the 55th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many people were behind organizing the historic event, including many Hollywood actors. Following the march, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) recorded a roundtable discussion with Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Joseph Mankiewicz, James Baldwin, and moderator David Shoenbrun as they discussed the march and race relations in America.
USIA’s mandate at the time was to provide an honest assessment of American life to an international audience. The participants both criticized and praised American values. USIA films at the time were not shown in the United States due to the Smith–Mundt Act.
“No matter how bitter I become I always believed in the potential of this country,” says James Baldwin in the film. “For the first time in our history, the nation has shown signs of dealing with this central problem.”
While the march and the roundtable, which were broadcast around the world together, was received favorably globally, many Americans criticized USIA for “putting out our dirty laundry” to the world.
So much for democracy…
But the real question here is if all these men were still alive today, would they met for such a discussion, considering Charlton Heston became a conservative later in life. And why were there no women invited to be part of this discussion?
I came across this great interview between British-Jamaican cultural theorist Stuart Hall and legendary Trinidadian political activist and writer CLR James on YouTube recently. I remember first watching this interview when I was in college where I minored in post-colonial studies. It brought back a lot of good memories of the classes I took and how the information continues to influence my perspectives today.
This is one of these new terms I had known about, but couldn’t refer to it by a name until recently.
So here is my definition: Intersectionality is the belief that one person can have many different identities that don’t exist separately and have an effect on how that person is viewed in society. This theory was first developed by race theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. Identities could include, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, sexual orientation, and disability.
For example, I am a middle-class, first-generation Jamaican-American, college-educated, black female. All of these identities have an effect on how society views me, for both good and bad. I am using my friend, Janine, who is a working-class, fourth-generation Irish-American, white female with a GED and uses a wheelchair. We both face discrimination for being female; however, because I am also black, I face both racial and gender bias. I am an entrepreneur and live in a house and can afford a better standard of life compared Janine who lives paycheck to paycheck at her office manager job. While being a white female in America still hold high privilege, Janine faces discrimination for her disability.
Believe it or not, Sojourner Truth was the first advocate who articulated intersectionality the best during the 1851 Women’s Convention in Ohio:
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
Sojourner Truth was the truth!
This is a very complex discussion. So here is a video of Crenshaw discussing intersectionality.
Just in case you need further evidence of the bad direction this country is going, here is an old Def Poetry Jam video of the late Amiri Baraka talking about the state of this country. He is still right in 2018.
This year marks the 55th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many people were behind organizing the historic event, including many Hollywood actors. Following the march, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) recorded a roundtable discussion with Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Joseph Mankiewicz, James Baldwin, and moderator David Shoenbrun as they discussed the march and race relations in America.
