Lots of people seem to think Patricia Arquette basically said gay people and people of color should stop fighting for their rights and instead fight for the rights of rich white women.
I don’t think she said that.
Soraya Nadia McDonald at the Washington Post tells the story:
…while the language in Arquette’s acceptance speech may have set off some silent alarms, her follow-up comments backstage proved more incendiary to some.
Said Arquette:
“The truth is, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are at play that do affect women, and it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we all fought for to fight for us now.”
Here’s where things really got dicey, and this is what made a lot of people unhappy with Arquette. Over at RH Reality Check, Andrea Grimes called Arquette’s statement an “intersectionality fail.”
I disagree.
To be fair, I do agree that it can be read that way. There’s ambiguity in the wording. But then, she was talking live, in conversation, and it’s pretty damn hard to remove all the possible ambiguity in what you’re saying in live conversation.
But why, when it’s ambiguous, assume that she meant the worst thing possible? Why not just say well she could have worded that better but right on, or she could have worded that better but meh?
I think she was simply calling for solidarity across all the lines, in other words for more intersectionality.
I don’t think she is the enemy.