Patricia Hill Collins: 'Toward a New Vision: Race, Class and Gender as categories of analysis an

Abstract: Audre Lorde’s statement raises a trouble-some issue for scholars and activists working for social change. While many of us have little difficulty assessing our own victimization within some major system of oppression, whether it be by race, social class, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age or gender, we typically fail to see how our thoughts and actions uphold someone else’s subordination. Thus, white feminists routinely point with confidence to their oppression as women but resist seeing how much their white skin privileges them. African-Americans who possess eloquent analyses of racism often persist in viewing poor White women as symbols of white power. The radical left fares little better. “If only people of color and women could see their true class interests,” they argue, “class solidarity would eliminate racism and sexism.” In essence, each group identifies the type of oppression with which it feels most comfortable as being fundamental and classifies all other types as being of lesser importance.