Post-structuralists appropriated terms such as "" and "difference" that originated in 1970s-era Black feminism. ... But there is a world of differenc… - Sharon Smith

It is important to challenge the idea held by many critics--some Marxists among them--that the Black feminist concept of intersectionality is just about the experience of racism, sexism and other forms of oppression on an individual level. The Black feminist tradition has always been tied to collective struggle against oppression--against slavery, segregation, racism, , poverty, sterilization abuse, the systematic rape of Black women and the systematic lynching of Black men.

There can be no such thing as a simple "women's issue" in a capitalist system founded on the enslavement of Africans, in which racism remains embedded in its foundation and all its institutions. Nearly every so-called "women's" issue has a racial component.

Intersectionality is a concept, not a theory. It is a description of how different forms of oppression--racism, sexism, LGBTQ oppression and all other forms--interact with each other and become fused into a single experience. ... Intersectionality is another way of describing "simultaneity of oppression," "overlapping oppressions," "interlocking oppressions" or any number of other terms that Black feminists used to describe the intersection of race, class and gender.