Not MY Intersectionality

Abstract

Although Black women’s college participation rates have increased, it has not led to corresponding increases in graduation rates. Through the evolution of intersectionality as a methodology, theory, and framework, this paper examines the epistemological socialization of Black women in historically white institutions (HWIs), examining what this can tell us about Black women’s higher education experiences. Additionally, analyzing how Black women’s intersections affect the legitimacy and illegitimacy of knowledge production in an evolving system of neoliberal globalization. Its objective is to go beyond superficial understandings of the systemic oppression of Black women to uncover the epistemological implications of intersectionality, which renders some invisible intellectually and socially while cultivating others. Thus, this paper builds on current scholarship on how Black women have contextualized their unique higher education experiences through an analysis of Afro-Pessimism, sociology of absences and emergences, and critiques of intersectionality to locate Black women’s experiences with epistemic violence and imagine beyond. In the end, seeking to explore how Black women can embrace a new epistemic resistance by rejecting intersectionality.