Free Intersectionality Essay Example

Intersectionality is a term used in social sciences to fully grasps the effects of systematic inequalities as they “intersect” with one another.1 Intersectionality evaluates system inequalities such as race, gender, class, religion and sexual orientation and groups people who belong to more than one of those groups. Conducting case studies based systemic unjust practices by factoring in several inequality factors allows us to find precise correlations between injustices and victims of systemic injustices. An example of an intersectional study would be the examination of socio-economic class and gender inequality effects on academic success. Observing such inequalities with a macroscopic lens allows us to understand exactly how a specific group of people are marginalized by systemic inequalities in order to better understand the problems at large and solve them more effectively. The case study Intersectionality of race, class, and gender in predicting police satisfaction conducted by Ahmet Kule, Vic W. Bumphus, and Gale Iles 2 aims to understand how the attitudes towards police differ between people of different races and economic classes at an intersectional level in hope of bettering policing in the U.S.  

This case study surveyed the opinions of intersectional groups of people on police satisfaction in order to improve public support and enacted policies on the police conduct. The case study first separates the effects of race and class on police perception by reviewing previous studies conducted on the matter. The studies conducted on the effects of race concluded that minorities held less favorable attitudes towards law enforcement in comparison to White residents. A study conducted by Duke and Hughes noted that African Americans were the most likely race to regard police with negative atitudes3 while a secondary study conducted by Walker and Katz indicated that the Hispanic community held more favorable attitudes towards law enforcement compared to the African Americans. These findings reflect statistics of fatal shootings conducted by police in the US, according to a 2021 study conducted by the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics African American males were three times as likely to be killed by police while unarmed in comparison to White people. While Hispanics were 1.45 time more likely to be killed in comparison to White people 4. While studies conducted on the effects of social class on attitudes towards police revealed a positive correlation between higher income residents and positive attitudes towards police. Using this data as theoretical context as the bases of their study Ahmet Kule, Vic W. Bumphus, and Gale Iles conducted electronic surveys on people who had contact with law enforcement in the last five years and examined their perceptions against both intersected variables of race and class. The survey consisted of 27 items to gauge general attitude towards police while measuring contentedness in an ordinal scale of 1-5. The survey showed that being white and of higher income led to greater levels of police satisfaction at a score of 4.13/5. However, the least satisfied of all the groups were minority of higher income. While minorities of lower income reported the second highest satisfaction of 4.0/5. The data shows whites of lower income and minorities of higher income regarded the police with similar levels of satisfaction of 3.66 and 3.7 respectively. 

The data reinforces studies that proved the positive correlation between white people, high income and positive police attitudes. Importantly it studied the impoverished white attitude towards police which was shown to be the most negative and at par with the attitudes of minorities of higher income. This provides evidence to support the idea that race isn’t the leading factor in negative attitude towards the police amongst the white community, but that race is. The data allows us to compare income amongst minority groups and it also provides evidence that amongst minorities, class doesn’t matter as much as race does for even minorities with higher incomes regarded polices with more negative attitudes then minorities of lower income. One possible explanation to the poor attitudes towards police amongst lower income whites could be explained a study conducted by a Mbuba 5 in 2010 that increased police contact leads to less favorable attitude, it is increasingly more likely for lower income whites to have more contact with police then higher incomes whites reinforcing this hypothesis. However, I don’t think the very same hypothesis would apply to minority groups, as negative racial bias is more rampant amongst police then class bias in minority police contact.  This study shows us the disparaging inequality between races in the US and how even amongst those races there are big differences in habitus toward police depending on their individual class.  

Considering the widespread police misconduct across the United States leading to massive movements such as the Black Loves Matter Movement its critical to understand the unique relationship between intersectional groups and law enforcement agencies. 

The study contained several limitations as it didn’t consider the rate of victimization of the people surveyed. This is a big factor to consider as the major problem in law enforcement pertains to police misconduct. Another limiting factor was the small sample size of 147 participants with a majority consisting of white people. In order to be able to accurately understand intersectionality and systemic inequality there must be a larger and more representative sample size with people of similar experiences such as victimization. After reading this case study I believe that inequalities of race, class and or gender ae mutually constituted but the inequalities vary greatly between each group. What may clearly apply to one group of people such as white men in terms of injustices does not apply to minorities in this case. This emphasizes the societal double standard in between races, classes and genders. In this study it was clear that race and increased wealth intersected to create a less pleasant experience for minority higher income individuals. Although this study doesn’t outright discuss the inequalities produced by the systemic inequalities, I believe it is crucial to understand how interpret how society feels towards those structures of powers.