In our work at Tactile with governments and large corporations, we encounter numerous complex proposal responses rife with forms – lots and lots of forms. We are often required to fill out a form that is meant to give our prospective clients an understanding of the demographic makeup of our team. One such form we submitted recently asked for the number of women, the number of minorities, and the number of non-minorities on our team. The sum of these three numbers was to be the total number of employees.

See the problems here? This form assumes a singular, myopic definition of minority as applying only to people of predominantly non-white ethnicities. It doesn’t consider the “and” case of being a black female. It doesn’t consider the LGBTQ+ community. It doesn’t consider the disabled.

The shortcomings of this form remind me of some of the challenges present in the wide and ongoing struggles for social justice and equality in our society. The dismantling of systemic oppression should be the shared goal of all underrepresented communities. But we often become so laser focused on the issues that personally affect us that we fail to see how the plight of others is intrinsically tied to our own.

Hierarchies of Oppression

So many of us exist in the “and”. We know what it's like to be a minority within a minority, with our marginalizations stacked inside of each other like a set of Russian nesting dolls. When you’re personally affected by multiple systems of oppression simultaneously, how do you prioritize? How do you focus?

Audre Lorde once famously opined, “I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.”

In these words, I find the lens through which I view the world. All marginalized and oppressed people have had to go through some *expletive deleted* at the hands of their oppressors. My struggle may not be your struggle, but we’ve all had struggles. We should all be able to respect that. It’s those struggles that often bring out the best parts of us; the parts that make us unique.

So let’s embrace and acknowledge our uniqueness. Let’s work together as citizens, as businesses, as communities, as truly balanced news outlets, and as civic organizations in exploring intersectional approaches to maximizing the potential of cross-cultural collaboration. Let’s use the power of the “and” to foster innovation and to cultivate the diversity of ideas.

Because the friction of idea diversity can truly spark magic.