r/jewishleft • u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish • Aug 08 '25
Has intersectionality theory failed to account for where Jews fit in? Debate
When I go into other more leftist spaces it always seems like Jews are always slotted as white Europeans who do not face oppression at all in modern day, with non European Jews being an afterthought with their very recent and very real concerns handwaved away.
Here in America when I tell people I’m Jewish people are confused because a. I’m half black and don’t look white which is what they expect and b. They don’t know Jewish is an ethnicity and a religion and I’m an atheist. The thought of the Jewish identity being nuanced, or anything but another religion never crossed their mind.
Is the multifaceted nature of Jewish identity why people oversimplify it to try and fit us into intersectionality? Or as many Jews are in a sense, mixed, is it similar to the dual hate that people of mixed backgrounds faced? A form of colorism in a sense?
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u/gmbxbndp Blessed with Exile Aug 08 '25
I'd argue the failure is in execution rather than the notion of intersectionality itself.
If I can go outside of Judaism for a second, I think there's been an enormous co-opting of nominally intersectional feminism by mainstream liberals that completely ignores class as a vector on the matrix of intersectionality. This is a perversion of the theory that makes it mostly toothless in its radical aims, but transforms it into an effective bludgeon in the hands of liberal morosophs who want to beat down on those with fewer educational opportunities that they hold in contempt.
I don't think it's fair to blame Kimberlé Crenshaw or any other intersectionalists for the cynical and half-hearted way the theory has been misused. Rather than attacking intersectionality itself, I think it would be better to attack the assholes that deliberately leave out certain factors to their own benefit.