The Real Tea: Language at the Intersections

AbstractThis chapter discusses intersectionality primarily in its application to scholarship on language, gender, and sexuality. Focusing on its purpose in conceptualizing the multiplicative effects of overlapping systems of oppression on individuals’ experiences, the chapter outlines major features of the theory and exemplar case studies. The chapter builds on previous Black feminist scholarship (or rather, Blackfemme(inist) scholarship) to explore how semantic bleaching has shifted understandings of intersectionality in public and academic discourse over time. Contending that the process is undergirded by a failure to engage with the architecture of race and racism, the chapter demonstrates how neoliberal conceptualizations of identity obstruct intersectional analyses of systemic oppression. A review of sociocultural linguistic scholarship on race, gender, and sexuality surveys representative work in the area. Adding to that line of research, the chapter examines the linguistic construction of Blackqueerness and concludes by suggesting a number of ways to “integrate” intersectionality more fully into the fold of language, gender, and sexuality research.