“Everybody Else Gets to Be Normal”: Using Intersectionality and Ms
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Victoria Singh Gill “Everybody Else Gets to Be Normal”: Using Intersectionality and Ms. Marvel to Challenge “Normal” Identity iven Said’s (1991) argument to resist “a The young adult graphic novel Ms. Marvel: No single overmastering identity” (p. 17) and the Normal (2014) was created by writer Willow Wilson Gfact that we now live “in this new world of and comic book artist Adrian Alphona. The series cultural fluidity” (McCarthy, Giardina, Harewood, & stars a teenage, Muslim, Pakistani American girl from Park, 2003, p. 452), I believe it is relevant to focus on New Jersey named Kamala Khan. Kamala is not only literature in the classroom that examines how youth learning how to accept multiple aspects of who she narrate or grapple with their identities. In schools, a already is, but she also begins to develop superhuman hegemonic approach frames identity as singular (Mc- powers that propel her further into her own process Carthy et al., 2003); however, as noted by Ayse Caglar of identity construction. Given the way she is posi- (1997), there is a rising trend wherein people identify tioned across these identities, Kamala is the proverbial themselves in terms of “plural and fluid cultural iden- “underdog”; she is a female in a patriarchal society, tities” (p. 169). To bridge this gap, it is essential that a person of color in a White majority society, and a “schools, universities, and educators acknowledge Muslim in a Christian-dominated society. In a way, the multiple identities of students and the different Ms. Marvel can be seen as a “beacon for intersection- identity ‘capital’ students have in each context. ality” in that it features “a specific sort of outsider in [W]e must go beyond the racial binary in understand- terms of gender, race, religion, and nationality” in ing students’ identity construction” (Li, Lin, & Wang, a work of literature “adaptable for consumption by 2014, p. 60). audiences who do not belong to that marginalized Said (1993, 2000) has also suggested that a vigor- group” (Kent, 2015, p. 524, emphasis in original). Ms. ous, deep, and complex understanding of culture and Marvel: No Normal brings the “just like them” and “us identity should inform educational practice. In this versus them” discourse front and center for a general article, I argue that educators can benefit from em- audience to witness and challenge through the per- ploying an intersectionality lens as a form of literary spective of a minoritized and commonly discriminated analysis that challenges a “normal identity.” I suggest against character type. More important, Ms. Marvel: that educators, administrators, policymakers, and No Normal urges readers to consider how those from literacy researchers utilize an intersectionality mindset marginalized backgrounds work toward achieving ac- to resist thinking of students and others as having “a ceptance without assimilation. single overmastering identity.” Specifically, I demon- strate how using an intersectionality framework in Review of Literature on Intersectionality analyzing a piece of literature can explicitly address Until the 1980s, sociological scholarship regarding differences rooted in social issues such as racism, sex- race, gender, and religion worked in isolation; for in- ism, and Islamophobia. stance, “race relations scholarship explored race from 68 HE EVIEW T ALAN R Fall 2016 J68-78-ALAN-Fall16.indd 68 9/20/16 10:56 AM the perspective of men, [and] gender scholarship ex- Doing an intersectionality analysis is important plored gender from the perspective of white women” in Ms. Marvel: No Normal because it allows read- (Belkhir & Barnett, 2001, p. 158, emphasis in original). ers to better understand the ways in which Muslim Intersectionality borrows from a collection of theories American women are specifically marginalized in our and combines them to become its own new theory. In society today. Expanding on this understanding, edu- a reductionist sort of way, one can broadly claim that cators and other educational practitioners can utilize intersectionality began as a blend of both feminism intersectionality to examine their own lives and those and critical race theory, focusing on the intersections of their students to better improve their practice. between sexism and racism in examinations of the op- pression of women of color. Separately, gender-based Methods and race-based research failed “to account for lived Before I delve into a description of my interpretive experience at neglected points of intersection—ones process, it is crucial to acknowledge the difficulty in that tended to reflect multiple subordinate locations conceptualizing a set methodology for intersectional- as opposed to dominant or mixed locations” (McCall, ity. The aims and objectives of intersectionality cannot 2005, p. 1780). Intersectionality began as a response “be realized only through a full-fledged grand theory to “the problem with identity politics—it frequently or a standardized methodology” (Crenshaw, 2011, conflates or ignores intragroup differences” (Cren- as cited in Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013, p. 789). shaw, 1994, p. 1242). Intersectionality resists the impulse to have a formal American critical race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw methodology because, as a fluid interpretative frame- (1989) coined the term intersectionality and described work, it thrives on the reality of tensions existing it using the metaphor of a road: between categories. Intersectionality is best conceived Intersectionality is what occurs when a woman from a mi- as a way of thinking “about the problem of sameness nority group . tries to navigate the main crossing in the and difference in its relation to power” (p. 795). city. The main highway is “racism road.” One cross street can be Colonialism, then Patriarchy Street. She has to That being said, I was able to apply intersection- deal not only with the one form of oppression but with all ality as a tool to analyze the “dynamics of power” forms, those named as road signs, which link together to (Cho et al., 2013, p. 795) through a process that was make a double, a triple, multiple, a many layered blanket heavily iterative. Prior to analysis, because “intersec- of oppression. (Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 196) tionality’s insistence on examining the dynamics of Within this metaphor, there is an understanding that difference and sameness has played a major role in intersectionality deals with a “matrix of domina- facilitating considerations of gender, race, and other tion” (Collins, 1998), that oppression is constantly axes of power” (p. 787), I first read the text and iden- changing, and that different aspects of an individual tified language and visuals in Ms. Marvel: No Normal intermingle with other social issues. People should not that were emotionally or politically charged in regards have to be “multiply-marginalized” (Choo & Ferree, to race, gender, and religion. I flagged scenes signify- 2010), forced to choose between intragroup differ- ing racist, sexist, and/or religious microaggressions ences or to privilege race over gender, as all identities and then coded for instances of the intersectional are lived and experienced simultaneously and continu- categories of race, gender, and religion. I collected and ously. Without intersectionality, in an examination categorized these codes to later analyze for their impli- of “‘people of color’ and ‘women,’ respectively, one cations through an intersectionality lens. analysis often implicitly denies the validity of the After multiple readings and grappling repeatedly other” (Crenshaw, 1994, p. 1252). Intersectionality with certain scenes or visuals, my understandings and has evolved to include many other multiple forms analysis evolved as layers were added to the identi- of oppression, developing its “original foci on race, ties of Muslim American women in the graphic novel. ethnicity, gender, and class to incorporate citizen- Given the specific time and place in which the text ship, sexuality, religion, age, and other dimensions of is set, I also interrogated and added the social and subordination, across many different social settings” historical contexts to the analysis. For instance, the (Bose, 2012, p. 67). social context of this graphic novel’s setting is impor- 69 HE EVIEW T ALAN R Fall 2016 J68-78-ALAN-Fall16.indd 69 9/20/16 10:56 AM tant given the fact that it is taking place during a time reveals a hierarchy of power based on race, gender, when American society’s anti-Muslim sentiments are and religion. Zoe condescendingly compliments the prevalent in a post 9/11 era. To apply an intersec- headscarf of Nakia (Kamala’s friend) by calling it tional analysis, I considered answers to the following “pretty.” According to Patricia Collins (2000), “Within guiding questions: the binary thinking that underpins intersecting oppres- sions, blue-eyed, blonde, thin white women could not • What issues of difference or sameness are being be considered beautiful without the Other” (p. 89). displayed in the text or visual? Here, Zoe refers to Nakia as pretty, but in doing so, • How do the issues of difference/sameness interact positions herself as the true decider of what counts as with each other? pretty, since she is the epitome of “blue eyed, blonde” • In what ways does power affect the issues of differ- American beauty. ence/sameness? There are many forms of discrimination occurring • In what ways do political, social, or historical con- in this one scene, all of which attack Nakia’s identity. texts interact with the issues of difference/same- Nakia is seen here wearing a hijab (head covering ness? scarf, or veil). From Zoe’s point of view, the hijab Engaging in multiple readings and viewings of the connotes a stricter and more violent version of Islam, text and images provided more insights with each hence the simplistic and reductive assumption about added layer, making this intersectional work iterative. Nakia’s purpose for wearing a hijab. First, Zoe, know- To better display this cognitive work, an example of ing that Nakia prefers not to go by her “‘Amreeki’1 how I categorized and began analysis can be seen in nickname” (p.