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1 Geo. J. L. & Mod. Critical Race Persp. 135 (2009)
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Continuing Need for Intersectional Discourse

handle is hein.journals/gjmodco1 and id is 145 raw text is: NOTES Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Continuing Need for Intersectional Discourse SEEMA AHMAD* INTRODUCTION It is undoubtedly true that the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination each represent significant successes in gender and race relations in the United States. However, might this self- congratulatory feeling of achievement promise much more than it delivers? Perhaps, upon closer reflection, these successes have much in common with past victories of feminists who advanced the cause of white women or antiracists who focused singu- larly on the struggle of minority men. This paper argues that society's treatment of Hillary Clinton's much-heralded presidential run and Barack Obama's clinching of the Democratic presidential nomination has in some respects worked to silence the struggles of an often ignored group-women of color. In 1991, Kimberl6 Crenshaw wrote her seminal piece Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color and fundamentally altered the way progressives think about identity politics and anti- subordination strategies.1 She argued that two of the prevailing progressive dis- courses, feminism and antiracism, failed to take into account the oppression suffered by women of color who occupy both the gender and race spheres of subordination. This paper seeks to: 1) identify and explore the themes presented in*Crenshaw's piece; 2) apply Crenshaw's theory to discussions that have emerged surrounding the potential for the first (white) female President of the United States; 3) similarly apply it to the treatment of the potential for the first African-American (male) President of the United States; and 4) offer strategies to avoid the pitfalls Crenshaw identified seventeen years ago. These strategies are presented to empower minority women and to enable the struggles for race and gender equality to coexist harmoniously, rather than engender friction and discord. As a caveat, group identities and labels are difficult to discuss. Individual experi- ences vary widely and, in some ways, the criticism I launch against feminists and antiracists could easily be launched against a discourse focusing on women of color. An additional complication is that in an effort to exemplify the theory presented in * © 2009 Seema Ahmad. J.D., Georgetown Law, expected 2009. Many thanks to Professor James For- man, and also to Professor Charles Lawrence and the.students in his Spring 2008 seminar on Critical Race Perspectives. 1, Kimberl[ Crenshaw, Women of Color at the Center: Selections from the Third National Conference on Women of Color and the Law: Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women ofColor, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1241 (1991). 135

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