Our Movement Is Global
an interview with Alice Ragland
Ragland, Alice
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4464
Date Written: 2015-07-01
Publisher: Against the Current
Year Published: 2015
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX21229
Against the Current interviewed Alice Ragland, who has been central to organizing Black youth in Cleveland against the police murder of Tamir Rice, the 12-year old shot to death two seconds after the police arrived at the park where Rice was playing with a toy gun.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
Ignoring the Black women who have been victimized is unacceptable. This is one of the many problems that make me feel as if I constantly have to choose between my race and my gender.
I deal with this by being vocal about the importance of including Black women in the discourse of violence against communities of color. Too often, people fall into a one-dimensional analysis of oppression. It's either racism or sexism or class inequality that's causing our problems, never a combination of various forms of oppression.
This is partially a result of the fact that U.S. society educates and socializes people to believe that everything exists in a vacuum and that nothing is connected. We need to start focusing on the interconnectivity of race, gender, class, etc., because all of those factors are simultaneously influencing our lives at all times. Emphasizing the connectedness of these issues is a necessary step toward acknowledging intersectionality.
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