Capitalism and White Supremacy: The Two-Headed Dragon that Must Be Slain

By Matthew Dolezal

Four decades of neoliberal Reaganomics has decimated the American poor and working class. Median wages have remained stagnant since the late 1970s, despite a consistent increase in productivity. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the country's wealth, and top CEOs make more than 300 times that of the average worker (which is a 1,000 percent increase since 1978). There are 46 million Americans officially living in poverty, but, due to the arbitrary nature of the poverty line, another 100 million are "near poor" (i.e. cannot afford basic necessities). And keep in mind - this is happening in the richest country in the world. These third-world levels of economic inequality make the US look a lot like an oligarchy. The vast majority of new income goes to the top 1 percent, and one family -  the Waltons of the Walmart empire - has more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the population.

Wealth concentration and poverty under neoliberalism aren't abstract concepts; they have tangible consequenses. For example, half of all Americans don't even live paycheck to paycheck, student loan debt is diminishing the prospects of home ownership, climate change is beginning to devastate poor communities while helping the rich, and 45,000 people die every year due to a lack of health insurance. In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, he said :

"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

But this is a democracy, right? Who would vote for such a grim existence? Well, according to an academic study from Cambridge , there is literally no correlation between public opinion and government policy. Turns out the plutocrats are running the show (thanks, in part, to Citizens United ).

Generic, theoretical capitalism is inseparable from our current paradigm of advanced, hyper-consumerist, job-shipping, union-busting, soul-crushing neoliberalism. Prominent capitalists have fought desperately to achieve this sadistic system, which is the culmination of an evolutionary history of laissez-faire. One day, long ago, Adam Smith planted roses, and all that remain are the thorns. To quote King again, "today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

But capitalism is not an equal-opportunity destroyer. These social tragedies demonstrably and empirically affect folks of color at vastly disproportional rates. For instance, the average net worth of black households is $6,314, compared to $110,500 for the average white household. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to be poor, and a white male with a criminal record is more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. Median black household income is approximately $43,300, while median white household income is around $71,300. This discrepancy is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967. And these economic disparities are just the beginning. For instance, in the area of mass incarceration, more than 40 percent of US inmates are black men, while that demographic only makes up 6.5 percent of the general population. In the area of police violence, black teens age 15-19 are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white teens of the same age group. These statistics could continue for pages. Profound systemic racism poisons every aspect of American society. These horrors are manifestations of the racial caste system that has always existed in the US, which is discussed at length by Michelle Alexander in her groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

We often forget that merely five decades ago, our country maintained a government-sactioned apartheid system. This included the intentional creation of black ghettos through redlining and other discriminatory policies. Political inertia, mixed with the racist War on Drugs, has preserved the vestiges of white supremacy. The reality on the ground looks a lot like the same ol' Jim Crow; that guy we swore we kicked out in 1964.

But racism isn't just institutional; it is often overt. The recent emergence of Trump made this crystal-clear . Not only did the Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists endorse him, but even for his voters, " fear of diversity " was a significant motivating factor.

The evils of racism are clearly apparent to any non-psychopath, but racial ideologies also serve to pit poor and working-class white folks against people of color and minorities, distracting them from their true nemesis; the ruling class. This is a classic example of "divide and conquer," and has benefited the elites immensely. Anti-racism activist and author Tim Wise elucidates this phenomenon in a concise Marxian manner:

"The history of America is the history of rich white men telling not rich white people that their enemies are black and brown."

Let's put an end to this madness. Let's build a movement to confront and destroy this dual evil of economic and racial injustice. Might I suggest…

Socialists have a rich tradition of fighting racism, from the Communist Party of Alabama , to Cuba's critical support of black South Africans during Apartheid, to early 20th century socialist politician Eugene Debs , to revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg , to the original Black Panthers Party . Socialists not only see racism as contrary to worker solidarity, but as a destructive and dehumanizing hierarchy, just like the class system itself. And indeed, capitalism and racism have a symbiotic relationship. Two modern organizations that are battling this double-headed beast are Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Redneck Revolt .

Founded in 1982, DSA is the largest socialist organization in the US, with a total dues-paying membership of 25,000 (a four-fold increase since November of 2016). Members have been active in opposing the agenda of the Trump regime, as well as carrying the torch of the Bernie Sanders political revolution. DSA has been on the front lines fighting for a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, LGBTQ equality, climate justice, reproductive rights, and many other progressive causes. However, one thing that separates DSA from other left-leading organizations such as Our Revolution is their vehement anti-capitalism. DSA document Where We Stand: Building the Next Left explains:

"We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships."

On the topic of anti-racist activism, DSA Honorary Chair and prominent intellectual Cornel West writes :

"A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy… When the system is declining, it can bring despair. That's why Black Lives Matter   -   and all other young people of all colors who are mobilizing   -   is a beautiful thing. We are having a moral and spiritual awakening. It gives us democratic hope... It's time to move from being spectators, to being actors."

Members of Redneck Revolt are not liberals . They are pro-gun, pro-labor, anti-fascist, and anti-racist. The movement is rapidly expanding, with more than 30 chapters around the US. Developing around 2009 as an outgrowth of the John Brown Gun Club, this diverse group now focuses on recruiting rural, southern and Appalachian working-class folks to join the fight against white supremacy and capitalism, while protecting and supporting people of color and other marginalized communities. After all, many of these poor southern white folks have been voting against their own interests for decades after falling for the xenophobic rhetoric of prominent politicians. Dave Strano, a founding member of the organization, explains:

"The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people. However, we've been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While we've been living in tenements and slums for centuries, we've also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colors, religions and nationalities."

Member Max Neely summarized their strategy by saying simply:

"We use gun culture as a way to relate to people. No liberal elitism. Our basic message is: guns are fine, but racism is not."

Now, I know just mentioning the term "white privilege" can make people uncomfortable , but this sociological reality must be acknowledged and dismantled as an inherent aspect of entrenched white supremacy. White privilege is the flip-side of the oppression and marginalization faced by people of color. Simply being given an unconditional pass to avoid oppression, discrimination, profiling, and other forms of profound inequality is in itself a major manifestation of white privilege. But an understanding of intersectionality as it relates to privilege is also crucial, just as it is in understanding oppression and exploitation. If one has privileges based on other sociological aspects of their identity, this privilege may extend beyond merely avoiding the injustices uniquely faced by non-whites. In addition to race, these realms include class, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, etc. The more dominant groups one belongs to, the more privileges that are usually afforded to that individual. Based on a rudimentary analysis of modern American society, the most privileged demographic would be wealthy, white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian men. Indeed, if you pay even peripheral attention to current events and history, you'll quickly realize that these are, more often than not, the people who own and control our society and have since its inception. One such man was "founding father" and forth president of the United States, James Madison, who was passionate about protecting "the minority of the opulent against the majority." Oh, and he also owned over a hundred slaves. There are still dudes like this, but now they're banksters and Koch -fiends. Let's break this trend. To those of us with various forms of privilege, let's use it to fight for a better future for everyone.

The genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas was our nation's original sin. White supremacy and capitalism were then built upon this rotten foundation. These parasitic abominations emerged simultaneously in American society; let's dismantle them simultaneously as well.

Women Workers Versus Intersectional Exploitation: Striving for Working-Class Feminism

By Tatiana Cozzarelli

This article originally appeared at Left Voice .

Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi, an Indian American, is the CEO of PepsiCo, the second largest food and beverage business in the world. It produces products such as Pepsi, Lay's, Quaker, Dorito, Starbuck's Ready-to-Drink, 7UP, Cheetos, Aquafina, Mountain Dew, Gatorade and Tropicana. In 2016, it made $62.8 billion in sales, had a market value of $159.4 billion, and employed an estimated 264,000 workers. It is no wonder that as CEO of such an important global corporation, Nooyi was ranked among the world's most powerful women more than once.

Not only has Nooyi been able to achieve the highest levels of business success as an individual, but she opens doors to people of color and women within the corporation. Currently, 27 percent of senior executives at PepsiCo are women and 36 percent are people of color- more diverse than the average corporation without a doubt. In the UK, PepsiCo has been ranked one of the top 50 companies for women to work over six times. The Times and Opportunity Now say that PepsiCo "is leading the way in gender equality in the workplace," in part due to a Strategies for Success program that helps female middle managers reach senior management positions.

For some, Nooyi is a model of female empowerment, evidence that women, and even women of color, can knock down the barriers of racism and sexism to achieve anything they set their minds to. Some may go further to argue that her empowerment is not just an individual achievement because she opens the doors for other women as well, a model feminist.

Some would argue that Nooyi's life demonstrates that the barriers of the past that limited our grandmothers from the highest positions are long gone and that we have entered a new era of equality. Based on this logic, there are still difficulties women face, but women like Nooyi are shining examples that women can overcome these difficulties.

This kind of feminism is a meaningless dead end. While Nooyi stands as a beacon of progress, women all over the world suffer from illiteracy, violence, low wages, horrible working conditions. For every Nooyi, there are thousands of women whose bodies and spirits are crushed by the literal and symbolic weight of heavy machinery used to produce the products that make Nooyi a billionaire.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of PepsiCo in Argentina, a factory where a majority female staff are currently organizing a struggle against layoffs. This struggle highlights the faults of lean-in feminism and exemplifies a different kind of feminism - one that points to a real way forward for women around the world.

The Women of PepsiCo

For years, PepsiCo hyper exploited workers in the factory, hiring an overwhelmingly subcontracted female workforce that worked 12 hour days. Catalina Balaguer, a 10 year veteran of the factory and militant of the Partido de Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) says, "A lot of us women didn't say that we had kids, because we thought they would fire us. In time, we learned that having kids, being single mothers was in some cases a guarantee that we would be even more exploited. They knew we needed the money." She describes the horrible working conditions - 12 hour days, working over the weekend, short breaks, low wages, and dangerous conditions. "If you got pregnant, you had to work just like any other worker to make sure you kept your job. We spent years doing the same monotonous motions; years of our bodies bent in the same position. We are an extension of the machines. The machines spit bags of chips at us that we pack into boxes over and over again until we die. Every day, the same work that ruins our bodies."

In 2001, Katy, along with several other co-workers, was fired for organizing in the factory. For a year and a half, Katy fought for her job with the help of a fellow PTS militant who is a lawyer. They took the fight outside the courtroom, seeking solidarity from universities and other sectors of workers. Katy says, "We did an investigation with people at the university, psychologists, and sociologists, where we talked about what it was like to be a woman worker. We were able to put out good material about the complexity of being a woman worker - how much you spend and how much you make, how much time we work at the factory, how much time we work at home, and it was a good way to talk to other women workers… It made other women workers de-naturalize the work conditions we had."

Katy not only won her job back, but forced PepsiCo to take measures to save face. They stopped super exploiting subcontracted workers and began to make special donations to charities and to hire people with disabilities etc. Yet the real victories were in the understanding of workers at PepsiCo. "The struggle cost us suspensions, firings and threats, but we would do it again a million times if it changes the consciousness of tons of women who are not willing to resign themselves to the misery of this system," said Katy.

"The abuse, the anger, and the pain taught us to fight and to organize" said Katy. She and other workers, some of whom are members of the Trotskyist Party PTS organized and won leadership of the shop floor committee. As shop floor leaders, they won several concessions: leave for pregnant co-workers, better and safer work conditions and the end of subcontracting. The shop floor committee organizes regular assemblies to vote and decide on actions, promoting internal democracy and participation in the factory.

PepsiCo Workers for Women's Rights

PepsiCo particularly fought for the rights of women workers at PepsiCo and at other factories. For example, in 2010, along with the women's commission at Kraft Foods, they organized a road blockage, holding a sign that said "Subcontracting and Precarious Work are Violence." The workers also organized a work stoppage on March 8 for the International Women's Strike, as well as every June 3 for the Ni Una Menos march. At Tuesday's massive march for PepsiCo workers, Katy wore a sweater that said "Ni Una Menos Sin Trabajo" - Not one more without work.

She says, "We working women know that violence doesn't just happen in the domestic sphere. It also happens at workplaces and at the hands of people who are supposed to represent us in the government. The government just defends their own interests and submits families to the worst humiliation and the worst living conditions."

In the workplace, men and women organize together for women's rights, as well as for their rights as workers. "We have advanced with unity between male and female workers because we understand that our enemy is the boss who has demonstrated, with a sign on the door, that gender doesn't matter when it is time to fire us. We decide, we organize ourselves, we have assemblies, we vote (in the assemblies) and fight alongside our male co-workers: not ahead of them, not behind them. At their side, standing firm for our rights." Male co-workers who regularly witness the discrimination, humiliation, and violence suffered by women struggle side by side their co-workers against the managers and the bosses.

The Battle at PepsiCo

In the midst of an economic crisis, government austerity measures, and a constant increase in layoffs, PepsiCo decided to close the factory in Buenos Aires. The 600 workers arrived at work to find a sign that fired them from the job that they had worked and organized in for years, the factory that many had given their body to, leaving them with aches, pains, and injuries that will never go away. These workers decided to do what they have always done in the factory: fight back.

Despite the lack of support from the union bureaucrats, PepsiCo employees voted to occupy the factory, defying the American multinational led by Nooyi. They won over support from the community, engaging in pickets, roadblocks, interviews, solidarity concerts and more, with hundreds of workers, academics, and students expressing solidarity within Argentina and around the world. They organized a high profile boycott campaign and movement of international solidarity (including a petition in support that you can sign here). Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, figures from the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the massive Ni Una Menos movement, and thousands of activists from human rights, student, and worker organizations have come out in support of PepsiCo workers.

In mid July, the PepsiCo workers were violently evicted from their occupation. Armed with tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons, the cops attacked the workers and their supporters. The police attacks on workers and students was broadcast live on TV. A private consulting firm has estimated that the eviction of PepsiCo was livestreamed, tweeted, and read about by upwards of 20 million people - nearly half the total population of Argentina.

Two hours after the eviction and with media attention and public pressure mounting, a Labor Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the workers and ordered the company to reinstate them. However, PepsiCo has yet to comply with the court's decision.

The workers continue their struggle, even without the factory occupation. On July 18, 30,000 people marched to the National Congress representing combative union locals, student organizations, human rights activists, and the globally known #NiUnaMenos feminist collective. The hashtag #TodosConPepsicoEnLucha (Everyone With Pepsico in Struggle) was a trending topic for six hours. The workers set up a tent to coordinate the struggle against PepsiCo, as well as against austerity and layoffs.

Working Class Women on the Front Lines

The women of Pepsico demonstrates that women in the highest positions of society, whether they be in the government or in corporations, do not mean the liberation of working women; Nooyi of PepsiCo may be a woman of color, but that didn't make the conditions at PepsiCo any less exploitative. Changing the gender of those in power is merely a symbolic gesture, with no material consequences for the vast majority of women.

Nooyi's position as the CEO of PepsiCo, her super salary of $25,168,597, and the super salaries of all the women and people of color she seeks to put in management positions are built on the broken backs of Katy and workers like her around the world. Nooyi is wealthy because Katy is overworked and underpaid; Nooyi keeps her position as CEO by guaranteeing profits for shareholders, profits made by the labor of Katy and her co-workers. The longer Katy works, the lower her wages, the more precarious her job, the more PepsiCo makes a profit and the more Nooyi is a "good" CEO.

When Forbes ranked PepsiCo one of the best places for women employees, did they take into account the hundreds of thousands of women around the world like Katy who break their backs and spend their lives as the human extensions of machines?

Just last year, Hillary Clinton tried to convince American women that she was a symbol of female empowerment and that a Clinton Presidency was a victory for all women. It's the empowerment represented by the CEO of PepsiCo and the governor of Buenos Aires. It's empowerment that means nothing to the women workers of PepsiCo, to the partners of male workers, and to the women all over the world who are oppressed and exploited by "empowered women".

Yet, the PepsiCo struggle also highlights a different kind of feminism, a feminism rooted in the working class, in combativeness, and in refusing to accept symbolic gestures of equality. It is a feminism that understands that working women's enemies are the bosses, whether male or female, and their allies are their male co-workers who labor in the same working conditions as women PepsiCo workers. Today, there are more women than ever in history in the labor market. This can be a source of tremendous strength, as working class women organize themselves against labor abuses and sexism.

PepsiCo workers show a different kind of feminism, a feminism rooted in working class solidarity. A feminism that defends the working class and women against all violence by individual men, the capitalists, and the government. A feminism that does not seek individual empowerment but the empowerment of the working class as a class in defense of their rights and the rights of all oppressed people in society. A kind of feminism that understands that an injury to one is an injury to all; while one of us is oppressed and exploited, all of us are in chains. The kind of feminism that organizes in shop floor committees along with male co-workers for the rights of pregnant workers and for safer conditions for everyone.

While some argue that this kind of feminism is marginal, idealistic, impossible to take hold, I argue that this is the only kind of feminism that can realistically win rights for women - all women. This is the kind of feminism that wants actual victories, not symbolic ones; a feminism that wants to win the world for the working class and oppressed, not just crumbs for a lucky few.

Interdisciplinary Feminism: Why Building Alliances is Critical

By Cherise Charleswell

In a previous article entitled Feminism is Not Just for Academics: Overcoming Disconnect and Division , I explained that the roots of feminism are not grounded in academia and theory, but through the collective action of working-class women; concluding with:

To be fair, it needs to be reiterated that academic feminism serves it purpose and is simply one avenue of feminism which one may choose to travel down. Overall, feminism is an empowering framework from which a person may understand, critique, and change the world, while defining their place in it. Central to the tenets of feminism is the matter of choice. Feminists should be free to self-identify as feminists, and should also be allowed to carve out their own path within feminism, whether it is in an academic career in women's studies or working within the realm of social justice activism and women's rights organizing. Feminism must remain inclusive and should not be dominated by any sub-group.

An oversimplification of the words of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian writer, politician, political theorist, philosopher, sociologist, linguist, and founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, in which he called for "traditional intellectuals," who are representative of today's academics, to join with the "organic intellectuals" from the working class to effect social change, best describes the path forward that feminism should choose.

In the 2014 article, If We Want Feminism to Have a Real Impact, Then Let's Stop Teaching So Much Theory , Elizabeth Sergan echoed my critiques:

For three years, I taught feminist theory to undergraduates while working on my Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. There was a time when Berkeley was the epicenter of radical feminism: In the 1970s, women's rights activists regularly stormed campus buildings , demanding birth control, abortion, self-defense classes, and childcare. But when I started teaching in 2007, nothing particularly radical was happening anymore.

Far from being sites of activism and empowerment, Berkeley's Women's Studies classes were weighed down by theory and jargon. Using departmental guidelines, I crafted a syllabus that was meant to help my students think critically about gender, but what that really meant is that we spent our days wrestling with dense and difficult texts, parsing the works of Gayatri Spivak, Monique Wittig, and Judith Butler. We devoted inordinate amounts of time to asking whether gender and sexuality were social constructs, rather than biological facts. We casually threw around words like "subalterneity," "essentialism," and "phallogocentrism" as if they really meant something.

In keeping with these sentiments, I would like to further explain why interdisciplinary feminism, organizing and coalition-building outside of the halls of academia are imperative to identifying, calling out, and combatting gender-racial-sexuality-based discrimination; and working towards more inclusive and equal societies.

In order to be Intersectional, feminism must be Interdisciplinary

The case for intersectionality, what it is, how it can be applied in practice, and so on, has been discussed in women's studies and in feminist circles for almost three decades. Therefore, it should be well understood, but unfortunately that is not always the case. There are constant examples where it is not even considered, particularly when it comes to Western/white feminists. The backlash to Viola Davis's statements about women of color and opportunities in film and television, made during her win at the 2015 Emmy Award, is a recent example of this.

However, having intersectional approaches to feminism and women's rights activism is not enough. These approaches should also be interdisciplinary--and actually do more than just theorize and debate what issues are of importance to women; and actually include women working outside of academia in these conversations. Women do not live our lives in a bubble, and many continue to primarily work outside of the home (because being a stay-at-home mother is actually a class-based privilege for many who depend on two household incomes), and it is outside of the home that they are bombarded with various types of discrimination and prejudice. Discrimination and prejudice that feminist should be aware of and finding ways to mitigate. Thus, engaging women across multiple disciplines, and realizing that the vast majority of disciplines remain male-dominated; is critical.

For example, in the fashion industry, which has been problematic for many reasons-- including racial and cultural insensitivity, appropriation, and representation-- the majority of the prestigious or well known fashion houses were begun and continue to be led by men, and truth be told white men. Just consider: Versace, Gucci, Isaac Mizhari, Ralph Lauren, Zac Posen, Roberto Cavalli, Alexander McQueen, and so on.

The same can be seen in education, where women often hit a glass ceiling. For instance, university presidents in the United States continue to be overwhelmingly white men over age 60. The American Council on Education released a 2012 report on this, and it continues to be an issue discussed by others (see here and here). However, it is not just at the university level. Globally, while women are the overwhelming majority of those who work in education at the primary and secondary level, men continue to dominate positions as school principals. (For examples of these discussions see here -UK, and here- South Africa).

Although women are continuing to make strides in government, with a number of women having served as heads of state. Unfortunately, women continue to be underrepresented in governments around the world, with only 21.9% of national parliamentarians were female as of December 1, 2014. In the article Disproportionate Representation: A Look at Women Leadership in Congress, I discussed this disproportionate representation in great detail. The issue is extremely dire in the United States, where there has never been a woman head of state, and when looking at the 2015 Congress women held only 19.4% of the 535 seats.

Still, the issue of underrepresentation, glass ceilings, and other discriminatory issues have become well known and thoroughly discussed in fields such as: STEM, film and television--both behind the scenes and in front of the camera, radio and broadcast media--where male (and conservative) voices such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage continue to dominate, and also the construction and automotive industries, as well as in corporate America. Consider the sad sick reality that major news outlets---whether print or television--continue to turn mainly to male sources for their take on the economy, politics, the criminal justice system, the military, as well as topics that are deemed to be women's issues (abortion, birth control, Planned parenthood, etc). When you look at the majority of those who work in these industries, particularly in positions of leadership, it truly seems like "It's a man's world". And a closer look will reveal that there is a representation of women of color in the news media, and the highly public departure of Melissa Harris-Perry from her show on MSNBC, exemplifies that problem.

Women who experience marginalization and discrimination in these different sectors do not have the time, or perhaps the desire to think about theory, nor are they readily able to reach across disciplines to uncover and discuss these common themes of oppression; but this shouldn't discredit them as feminists or experts on gender relations. They have an intimate understanding of workplace sexism, disproportionate representation in leadership, and other ways in which women are discriminated against in their fields. Who else would be better qualified to discuss these issues, and offer solutions and strategies to address them, than those who have a clear understanding of and experience dealing with the various problems?

Further, why is it often only academic "feminist" who are brought in as political pundits and commentators, regardless of the issue or field that is being discussed? Why are there not more women who are clinicians and biomedical researchers asked to discuss underrepresentation in the STEM field? I have actually attended conferences where speakers have presented their research on the topic, but (1) they have never worked in the STEM field or (2) none of their co-panelist/presenters had work in the STEM field either.

Also, why are women working in fields where men greatly dominate, like the automotive industry, called upon to discuss not only workplace discrimination, but other labor issues?

Then there are those instances where women who did not major in gender studies (or attended any university for that matter) are marginalized or silenced, by other feminists, as if their observations and experiences, are lacking legitimacy. These are the women who may not know about the various waves of (Western) feminism, but understand the need for women's health research funding, have been subjected to police profiling and/or brutality, are screenwriters who may be coping with having their scripts rejected, because they refuse to develop stereotypical characters (damsel in distress, loud & crude Black woman, sassy Latina, submissive and unopinionated Asian), and are actively joining protest movements to counteract it, or are mothers living in food-insecure communities. These women are no less feminist than those who can readily quote bell hooks or Gloria Steinham, and they should be provided spaces and platforms to speak as "experts".

Practicing an intersectional and multidisciplinary feminism requires being inclusive, and recognizing that the experts are often those who have lived experiences and insights to share.

Conclusion

Grassroots feminism across disciplines is critical, not only in post-colonial nations working to remove the yoke colonialism and deeply-embedded patriarchy, but even in the West; particularly in the US where extremist religious, sexist, and bigoted attitudes are prevailing. There are the constant attacks on rights to abortion and other reproductive rights, attacks on voting rights, environmental justice issues--such as lead poisoning of the water supply in Flint Michigan and the gas leak in Porter Ranch California, located in Los Angeles country-- that directly impact women and families, as well as the threat of environmental degradation brought along by the XL keystone pipeline or fracking; which is actually supported by Hillary Clinton, the DNC's front runner, who we---women, feminist---are told that we should vote for, simply because she is a woman. To truly understand the problem with that line of thinking, I would suggest reading my article Disproportionate Representation, andHillary's Woman Problem, as well as Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote: From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted-and Hillary Clinton supported-decimated black America.

There are even questions about what constitutes legitimate rape, as well as as seething epidemic of campus rape. Additionally, there continues to be an issue of the exploitation and devaluing of the lives of women of color, which is seen with the case of Daniel Holtzclaw and his predatory rape and molestation of only Black women, the unlawful arrest and untimely death of Sandra Bland, the need for campaigns such as #WhatAboutOurDaughters and #SayHerName to highlight state sanctioned violence against Black women and other women of color, and the continued media silence on an epidemic in indigenous communities--of rape and disappearance of Native American women.

Ensuring that these issues and others that impact the lives, health, and wellbeing of women and girl are raised and addressed will require not only an intersectional approach to feminism, but one that is interdisciplinary. One that calls on the testimonies and expertise of women from across various disciplines, who can coalesce around their shared and varied experiences with sexism, misogyny, misogynoir, colorism, racism, homophobia, ableism, ageism.