1 00:00:02,350 --> 00:00:04,920 You probably think your opinions matter. 2 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:09,720 You probably think you’re an individual with unique experiences, thoughts and ambitions. 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:14,090 Well, I hate to break it to you, but according to current leftist orthodoxy, you’re wrong. 4 00:00:14,090 --> 00:00:18,730 You see, your opinion only matters relative to your identity—and where that identity 5 00:00:18,730 --> 00:00:21,710 ranks on the hierarchy of intersectionality. 6 00:00:21,710 --> 00:00:24,789 If you’re now thinking, “What the hell are you talking about?” you haven’t spent 7 00:00:24,789 --> 00:00:26,980 much time on a modern college campus. 8 00:00:26,980 --> 00:00:31,800 Intersectionality is a form of identity politics in which the value of your opinion depends 9 00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:34,280 on how many victim groups you belong to. 10 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:38,440 At the bottom of the totem pole is the person everybody loves to hate—the straight, white male. 11 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:39,780 And who’s at the top? 12 00:00:39,780 --> 00:00:43,900 Well, it’s very hard to say, because new groups claim victim status all the time. 13 00:00:43,910 --> 00:00:45,339 No one can keep track. 14 00:00:45,340 --> 00:00:48,300 So, how does this intersectionality thing play out? 15 00:00:48,300 --> 00:00:49,460 Something like this: 16 00:00:49,469 --> 00:00:51,420 Let’s say you’re a gay, white woman. 17 00:00:51,420 --> 00:00:54,680 Your opinion matters, but less than that of a gay, black woman. 18 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:55,420 Why? 19 00:00:55,420 --> 00:00:58,980 Because while all women are oppressed by the patriarchy, and all gays are oppressed by 20 00:00:58,989 --> 00:01:03,730 the heterosexual majority, blacks have a victim status that whites obviously don’t. 21 00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:07,850 Of course, a gay black woman’s victim status is less than that of a black trans woman, 22 00:01:07,850 --> 00:01:11,259 who ranks below a black, Muslim trans woman, and so on. 23 00:01:11,260 --> 00:01:14,760 The more memberships you can claim in “oppressed” groups, the more aggrieved you are, 24 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:16,200 and the higher you rank. 25 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:17,400 Get it? 26 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:20,300 Good, because it’s about to get even more complicated. 27 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:25,060 Intersectionality takes your victim status and uses it as the basis for creating alliances 28 00:01:25,060 --> 00:01:26,590 with other victim groups. 29 00:01:26,590 --> 00:01:31,760 Thirty or forty years ago, activists encouraged racial solidarity among blacks to combat oppression. 30 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:33,400 But today, that’s not enough. 31 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:37,380 Today’s activists demand blacks make common cause with other allegedly “oppressed” people 32 00:01:37,380 --> 00:01:41,840 —gays, lesbians, transgenders, Palestinians, Native Americans, whomever. 33 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:43,060 Here’s the logic: 34 00:01:43,060 --> 00:01:47,310 A black gay and a Hispanic gay may not belong to the same victim group racially, but they 35 00:01:47,310 --> 00:01:50,969 do belong to the same victim group on the basis of their sexuality. 36 00:01:50,969 --> 00:01:55,860 By focusing on the places where various victim identities intersect, intersectionality creates 37 00:01:55,860 --> 00:01:59,999 a united “us” versus “them” paradigm: righteous victims rising up together to fight 38 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,760 the oppressor, those dreaded straight, white men. 39 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:06,680 This explains why at a rally protesting the treatment of Palestinians by Israel, 40 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:09,000 you might see a contingent of lesbian activists. 41 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:10,900 That’s intersectionality at work. 42 00:02:10,900 --> 00:02:14,640 They’re so united by their victim status that it doesn’t matter if Islamists throw 43 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:18,840 gays off of buildings or murder female family members who defy their father’s wishes. 44 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:22,200 Victim solidarity trumps all other considerations. 45 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:25,960 The term “intersectionality” was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor of law 46 00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:27,720 at Columbia University. 47 00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:32,850 She explains that intersectionality “was my attempt to make feminism, anti-racist activism, 48 00:02:32,850 --> 00:02:37,510 and anti-discrimination law do what I thought they should—highlight the multiple avenues 49 00:02:37,510 --> 00:02:40,750 through which racial and gender oppression were experienced…” 50 00:02:40,750 --> 00:02:44,560 To Crenshaw, America is a terrible place full of victim groups, each with their 51 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,220 particular set of grievances. 52 00:02:46,220 --> 00:02:50,560 Why shouldn’t these victim groups get together and form a political coalition unified by 53 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:53,680 the belief that the majority society has harmed them? 54 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,160 That some professor tucked away in an ivory tower would come up with this nonsense 55 00:02:57,160 --> 00:02:58,340 is not surprising. 56 00:02:58,340 --> 00:03:02,960 What is surprising—and disturbing—is that so many people actually go along with it. 57 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:06,820 America is the most open, least racist nation on the planet. 58 00:03:06,820 --> 00:03:10,940 That professor Crenshaw is free to spin her nonsensical theories and get paid well for it 59 00:03:10,940 --> 00:03:12,800 should offer adequate proof of that. 60 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,680 And since when do you have to live someone’s experience in order to understand them? 61 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:20,700 You don’t have to live as a slave in order to understand that slavery is cruel and wrong. 62 00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:24,140 You don’t have to live as a woman in order to recognize the evil of rape. 63 00:03:24,140 --> 00:03:28,610 Finally, and most important, intersectionality promotes the biggest hoax of all: that we 64 00:03:28,610 --> 00:03:32,160 aren’t individuals who are to be judged on the basis of how we act, but are merely 65 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:35,440 members of groups to be judged on the basis of our group identity. 66 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:39,780 In other words, you and I as individuals with our unique experiences, thoughts and ambitions 67 00:03:39,780 --> 00:03:43,840 count for nothing; our racial and sexual identity count for everything. 68 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:48,880 It’s hard to imagine an idea less likely to produce a free and equal America than that. 69 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:49,880 But what do I know? 70 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:51,440 I’m just a straight, white male. 71 00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:54,520 I’m Ben Shapiro for Prager University.