In 'Backtalker,' Kimberlé Crenshaw turns from political theory to personal memoir

Summary

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NPR's Book of the Day — In 'Backtalker,' Kimberlé Crenshaw Turns from Political Theory to Personal Memoir

Air Date: May 21, 2026
Host: Michelle Martin
Guest: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
Producer: Alyssa Nadworny

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Michelle Martin interviews Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the pioneering legal scholar known for her foundational work on intersectionality and critical race theory. Crenshaw discusses her new memoir, Backtalker, which bridges the gap between her academic theories and her personal experiences growing up as a Black woman in America. The conversation explores how her personal narrative shaped her groundbreaking legal concepts, the societal backlash against her work, and her resilience in the face of political retrenchment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Personal Origins of Intersectionality

• Crenshaw’s Early Realizations

  • Crenshaw recounts a formative college incident at Harvard’s Fly Club, highlighting the double binds of race and gender:

    • A friend, proud to be one of the first Black members, invited her to a celebratory event but informed her she had to enter through the back door because she was a woman ([02:54]).
    • Quote:

      “That’s when I realized that there was fine print. Our solidarity extends to the things that treat us with disrespect in the same way –– we’re not having to go around the back door because of our collective racial identity. You’ve got to go around to the back door because of your gender identity.”
      — Kimberlé Crenshaw ([03:32])

  • This experience cemented her understanding that Black women face unique challenges at the convergence of racism and sexism.

• Landmark Legal Moment

  • Crenshaw references a 1976 court case involving Black women who were barred from jobs at a company hiring only Black men for factory jobs and only white women for secretarial work ([04:00]). The court dismissed their claim by treating race and gender as separate issues.

  • Quote:

    “As far as the court was concerned, because Black women were the only ones in this setting who needed to be able to say, ‘it’s the combination of racial and gender discrimination that I’m suffering from,’ to give that to them was to give them preferential treatment. And so when I read that, it just blew my mind.”
    — Kimberlé Crenshaw ([04:46])

  • Crenshaw explains how this galvanized the metaphor of "intersectionality"—overlapping avenues of oppression, like intersecting roads packed with different kinds of ‘traffic.’

From Legal Theory to Culture War

• Unexpected Mainstreaming (and Backlash)

  • Martin observes that even if the public doesn’t know Crenshaw’s name, her theories are debated at school board meetings and politicized in national culture ([05:47]).

  • Crenshaw did not foresee the explosive spread of critical race theory and intersectionality into political flashpoints ([06:12]).

    • Quote:

      “In American society, forward momentum has always been met by retrenchment, going all the way back to Reconstruction… after the George Floyd reckoning in 2020, we are now in a period of retrench.”
      — Kimberlé Crenshaw ([06:33])

  • She is critical of those in racial and gender justice movements who try to sidestep “trigger words” rather than confronting the backlash head-on.

    • Quote:

      “It was never just about a few words or a few letters.”
      — Kimberlé Crenshaw ([07:37])

Resilience Amid Retrenchment

• Feeling Politically Homeless
  • Martin asks if the backlash leaves Crenshaw feeling politically adrift ([07:50]).
  • Crenshaw finds solace in the impact her ideas have had on individuals who’ve used them to make sense of their lives:
    • Quote:

      “Opponents don’t go after things that don’t matter. When ideas move possibilities – these are the moments that the ideas come under stress… I’m lifted by all the people that I meet all the time who talk about how the ideas have been helpful in putting meaning and narrative to their own lives. So that keeps the frustration at bay.”
      — Kimberlé Crenshaw ([08:03])

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Notable Quotes

• “That’s when I realized that there was fine print. Our solidarity extends to the things that treat us with disrespect in the same way –– we’re not having to go around the back door because of our collective racial identity. You’ve got to go around to the back door because of your gender identity.” (Crenshaw, [03:32])
• “As far as the court was concerned, because Black women were the only ones in this setting who needed to be able to say, ‘it’s the combination of racial and gender discrimination that I’m suffering from,’ to give that to them was to give them preferential treatment. And so when I read that, it just blew my mind.” (Crenshaw, [04:46])
• “In American society, forward momentum has always been met by retrenchment, going all the way back to Reconstruction… after the George Floyd reckoning in 2020, we are now in a period of retrench.” (Crenshaw, [06:33])
• “It was never just about a few words or a few letters.” (Crenshaw, [07:37])
• “Opponents don’t go after things that don’t matter. When ideas move possibilities, these are the moments that the ideas come under stress… I’m lifted by all the people that I meet all the time who talk about how the ideas have been helpful in putting meaning and narrative to their own lives. So that keeps the frustration at bay.” (Crenshaw, [08:03])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:54] — The Harvard Fly Club incident and early reflections on race and gender
• [04:00] — The 1976 court case and the metaphor of intersectionality
• [05:47] — Mainstream backlash and surprise at the politicization of CRT and intersectionality
• [06:33] — The historical cycle of progress and retrenchment in the US
• [07:37] — Critique of pivoting away from contested language in justice movements
• [08:03] — Crenshaw on resilience, impact, and what sustains her

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Tone & Takeaways

This episode delivers an accessible yet poignant conversation, full of plainspoken wisdom and real-life anecdotes. Crenshaw deftly links her personal journey to her groundbreaking theories and offers frank assessments of progress and backlash in the ongoing struggles for social justice. Listeners come away with a deeper understanding of intersectionality—not merely as an academic term, but as something rooted in lived experience and ongoing resistance.

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Transcript

[A]

Hi there, I'm Alyssa Nadworny and this is NPR's book of the Day. The scholar behind such academic turned cultural touchpoints like critical race theory and intersectionality has a new memoir out called Backtalker. Kimberly Williams Crenshaw is a law professor and civil rights advocate who delves into her own past to illustrate why what she studies is so important. She talks with NPR's Michelle Martin about why she believes progress in society is is nearly always followed by a slide backwards.

[B]

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[C]

the name Kimberle Crenshaw or not, you probably know her work. That's because her work as a foundational legal theorist of the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory have become pivotal to some in understanding the forces that shape their lives and a political weapon in the hands of others, a symbol of liberal insanity. And now Kimberle Crenshaw explores the origin story of these theories in her own life in a poignant new memoir. It's called Back Talker and she's with us now. Professor Crenshaw, thank you so much for joining us.

[D]

I am so thrilled to be in conversation with you. Michelle.

[C]

Your memoir is very plain spoken. Anybody can understand what you're saying in the stories that you tell. You describe just incidents in your life, starting from when you were a little kid, that made you realize that your girlness and your race were connected it's hard to pick just one, but I'm going to pick the one from the Fly Club at Harvard. It's like a social club, right? I mean, it's kind of like a frat, but not really a frat. What happened?

[D]

So our one friend was so proud of being one of the first black members ever of the Fly Club. As a celebration for the end of the semester, he invited us to go. And my other friend and I, we weren't so sure that we really wanted to go to the Fly Club. But we said, whatever happens when, we're not gonna take any disrespect. So when we got to the Fly Club and we knocked on the door, our friend came out and our friend said, I just forgot to tell you that because Kim is a woman, she has to go through the back door. We don't allow women to come through the front door.

[C]

Okay, wow. Let's just stop. Like, wow.

[D]

That's when I realized that there was fine print. Our solidarity extends to the things that treat us with disrespect in the same way we're not having to go around the back do because of our collective racial identity. You've got to go around to the back door because of your gender identity.

[C]

As a legal scholar, you came across this 1976 case in which that kind of thinking had real life consequences.

[D]

It involved a black woman who was representing other black women, effectively saying that they were being discriminated against as black women. The court that was listening to the case just summarily sort of dismissed the case, effectively saying, look, this company hires black people, and this company hires women. So you can't prove race discrimination, and you can't prove gender discrimination.

[C]

Can I just jump in here for a second? It's true they hired women, but they only hired women in secretarial roles, which they never hired black women for. And yes, they hired black men, but they only hired black men for the factory floor, and they didn't hire women for those jobs. So black women were boxed out. But the courts couldn't see it as

[D]

far as the court was concerned, because black women were the only ones in this setting who needed to be able to say, it's the combination of racial and gender discrimination that I'm suffering from. To give that to them was to give them preferential treatment. And so when I read that, it just blew my mind. These are very erudite judges, but they weren't able to understand something that, to me, was very basic in the lived lives of black women like me. So the intersection was basically a metaphor to say, look, judges, you go through intersections every day. You can understand this. Just think about the race structure as one avenue. Think about the gender structure as another. Think about the policies as the traffic that's traveling along those structures. And imagine then where this traffic overlaps. That's what intersectionality initially was.

[C]

And that, along with your work in critical race theory, which frankly deserves kind of its own conversation, are part of the reason that even if people don't know your name, they know your work. It's the rare scholar whose work becomes such a topic of public discussion. People talking about crt, Critical race theory in school board meetings is something to be kind of fought against. And I just wondered if you saw that coming.

[D]

Critical race theory, intersectionality, those were articulated in the 80s, so the thought that decades later they would skip the rails and travel into mainstream culture as avatars. For, as one critic has said, everything crazy that has come out of the liberal left, no, that was hard to predict or anticipate. I would say. In American society, forward momentum has always been met by retrenchment, going all the way back to Reconstruction. After eight years of active effort to create full citizenship for the freed slaves, there came decades after that of retrenchment. The same with respect to the civil rights movement, the election of Barack Obama, and then after the George Floyd reckoning in 2020, we are now in a period of retrench. So the general cycle I anticipated and predicted. But I would say, honestly, Michelle, the thing that was the most surprising to me was the way that so many other stakeholders in race and gender justice would think that the play in response was to try to pivot away, to just say, well, we can keep doing what we're doing. Let's not use the word that will draw the negative attention. And I thought it was just incredibly shortsighted. I think, as we see now, that it was never just about a few words or a few letters.

[C]

Does that leave you feeling politically homeless? In a way.

[D]

It's kind of funny, because even I find myself sometimes complaining about this to some of my mentors and friends. And at the same time, I realized that opponents don't go after things that don't matter. When ideas move possibilities. These are the moments that the ideas come under stress and pressure and elimination and lifted by all the people that I meet all the time who talk about how the ideas have been helpful in putting meaning and narrative to their own lives. So that keeps the frustration at bay.

[C]

That's Professor Kimberly Crenshaw. She's a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia Law School. Her latest book, it's called Backtalker. Professor Kimberle Crenshaw, thank you so much for talking with us.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

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