I’m sorry you interpreted my article that way, Neeka. I’d like to address your points to hopefully clear up a few things:

This was a very long way of saying “I do not understand intersectionality and I do not want to understand it…”

I actually have a pretty decent understanding of intersectionality, and have read Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s 1989 paper on the topic. I believe that the original incarnation of the concept had a lot of validity, probably because Crenshaw outlined it in a more rigid sense and pointed to specific cases in which women of color experience more discrimination than white women or men of color.

Unfortunately, the current description of intersectionality has grown to include class, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, ability, political affiliation, location, sexual identity, and a whole plethora of dimensions of identity, that it’s become unwieldy, with too many people exploiting it to position themselves as victims for social points. This is what I’m against.

“…but I do want to tell women of color how to address whiteness and within what bounds they can do so.”

It wasn’t my intention to tell women of color how to address whiteness; rather, it was my intention to discourage ALL people of ALL identities to boss around others and treat them as if they were all the same, simply because they’re of a different race, gender, sexuality, etc. It’s this very attitude that undergirds the philosophy of hate groups.

“This has way more to do with defending white women from a critical gaze”

Believe me, if I saw prominent white male creator talking about how is work designed to challenge well-intentioned black women, I would rip him apart just as much as I did Celeste Ng.

If racial equality is the end goal, shouldn’t we all hold each other to the same standards rather than picking and choosing which groups are allowed to lecture others and which aren’t?

I hope this adds some context to my words. Take care, Neeka.