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What Does Intersectionality Mean? : 1A The Atlanta spa shootings brought attention to the long history of hate against Asians and Asian Americans, but it was also a tragedy at the intersection of gender, race and class.

The idea that our identities don't exist in a vacuum is not a new one. It even has a name: intersectionality. The term's been around for more than 30 years. Still, a lot of people either don't understand, or misunderstand, its meaning.

We discuss the meaning of intersectionality, how it applies to the Atlanta shootings and answer your questions.

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What Does Intersectionality Mean?

What Does Intersectionality Mean?

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Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality decades ago. She spoke to us about what it means. Getty Images for The New York Women's Foundation hide caption

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Getty Images for The New York Women's Foundation

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality decades ago. She spoke to us about what it means.

Getty Images for The New York Women's Foundation

The Atlanta spa shootings brought attention to a long history of hate against Asians and Asian Americans. But the shootings were also a tragedy at the intersection of gender, race and class. The horror of the event struck a chord for many people belonging to different demographic groups.

Intersectionality is something we hear a lot in reference to stories about politics, lifestyle, tragedy and more. Roughly defined, it's a term that describes the relationships between social categories and the people and concepts that can fall into more than one.

We talk about this phenomenon with the scholar who coined the term, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Treva Lindsey and Juliana Hu Pegues also joined the conversation.

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