Intersectional AI Toolkit

Why We Need Intersectional AI


AI Is Shifting Power

e.g. Christina zur Nedden and Ariana Dongus reported on [involuntary biomentric testing]
(https://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2017-12/biometrie-fluechtlinge-cpams-iris-erkennung-zwang) on refugees entering Jordan.

Intersectionality Helps Us Understand Power

What Intersectionality Is

Intersectionality, recently clarified by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw who coined the term in 1989, "deals with the interactive effects of multiple forms of discrimination—racism, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, homophobia. [...] Most importantly, Intersectionality is a frame to tell us what's wrong with the way certain discriminations are thought about. [...] Our understanding of racism [and] sexism is incomplete if it doesn't attend to the intersection of both."(Crenshaw2021)

"To fully understand how to do equality, [...] you have to see how institutions and vulnerabilities are structured in intersecting ways."(Crenshaw2021) ![Black Feminist Ethics and Tactics](../../assets/img/LC-BlackFeministEthicsTactics.png) "The fundamental thing to remember is that for the most part 'Isms'—racism, classism—are often framed through the experiences of those who are dominant within the group, and more times than not that's men. And because we don't understand racism as it plays out between women, or racism as creating burdens on someone that others don't have, because we don't have that understanding, we often run up against the limitations of that frame when it's disproportionately women of a particular background or context who are being impacted by something." (Crenshaw2021)

"Intersectionality is an institutionalized historical advantage for white men. [...] We see hierarchy and we see the way things are supposed to be through a lens that's already intersectional. ~~It's only when there are people who are challenging that, saying it's unfair or unjust, that people see a problem [...].~~ So yes, intersectionality marks power, as well as exclusion. If we take it seriously it gives us a clue about the ways we need to rethink how our institutions function, what it values, what it should value, in order to make more equitable more institutional practices."(Crenshaw2021) —Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw

"Intersectionality is actually a beautiful and brilliant tool for coalition making."(Crenshaw2021)
—Juliana Hu Pegues

What Intersectionality Is NOT

"it's an analytic tool, not a hierarchy [...] it is not identity politics on steroids"[^Crenshaw2021] "Intersectionality is not just about identities apart from the structures that make those identities salient. [...] It's not in the body; it's in how the body is situated in the society in which we live. And that's the piece that people often get confused about."[^Crenshaw2021] "Intersectionality is a dynamic idea. It's not flat, it's not predetermined, it's not a formula. It's a way of seeing, it's a way of looking, it's an imperative that says if we want to be more equal we have to be better prepared to see where any inequality exists. That's what Intersectionality does, that's what it's for."[^Crenshaw2021] "Intersectionality is contextually specific. I say it again. When we're talking about the low wages of working class women, that often includes white working class women as well. [...] Whiteness isn't protecting them from class and gender inequality in the way that whiteness sometimes provides insulation from other forms of inequality. That is the point of intersectionality. It's not a one-size-fits-all, it's not a prism that always predicts who's on top and who's on bottom."(Crenshaw2021)



Footnotes:
[^Crenshaw1989]: Crenshaw, K. (2015). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1). https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 (Crenshaw2021): Crenshaw, K. (2021, March 29). What Does Intersectionality Mean? : 1A. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/29/982357959/what-does-intersectionality-mean

What Intersectionality Offers to Technology

Critical lenses
Practical tactics
A meta-ethics of multiplicity

Whiteness & AI

Characteristics of white supremacy [source]() zine
From inclusion to decentering

Representation is not enough; labor is present but unseen, in global south and undervalued. Not about code bootcamps but valued voices. [source]() Dunbar-Hester, et al

Race Is A Technology

[source]() Lisa Nakamura, Wendy Chun, et al Race as algorithm, Sareeta Amrute ### Algorithmic histories predict futures [source]() Dark Matters, et al

Alternative histories & approaches [source]()

The reach of AI requires Intersectionality at every level

Sources

Issues in this zine collection

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