Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA Founder and President & Meredith Loui Research/Program Associate Intersectionality Training Institute June 12, 2023 Image3 (4) Salon Title: Thinking Through the Disciplinary Domain of Power and What Probation Officer Diversity at Socio-Structural Intersections of Diversity Can Teach Us: Examining Probation Through the Lens of a Diverse Workforce Salon Guest Image1 (2) Sukhmani Singh, PhD Assistant Professor University of Connecticut School of Social Work Salon Description Salon Date: May 10, 2023

Key Salon Takeaways

We were thrilled to welcome regular saloniste, Dr. Sukhmani Singh to be our May 2023 guest. Using community-based participatory research (CBPR), Paolo Freire’s critical consciousness, critical race theory, abolitionist perspectives, and intersectionality (of course) as key frameworks, her research examines what it means to be Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and work in oppressive systems such as the juvenile legal justice system. Her was salon fire (as the kids say): profound, insightful, and critical. Less notable, I was able to join the entire salon from the air courtesy of American Airlines’ in-flight wifi. So you see y’all, no excuses to miss a salon if you’re flying.😀 A warm thank you to Greta Bauer, Co-Director of Programs for hosting the salon while I was 30,000 feet above. — Lisa Bowleg
  • Women now account for roughly 54% of the probation workforce, and an increasing number of the women working as probation officers in the juvenile legal system are Black. Singh’s research prompts several challenging questions such as: Is diversity enough? When is diversification problematic? She noted that the example of more Black women probation officers highlights that diversification is not the solution to structural inequity. Diversification is an incomplete solution when done in service of White supremacy. Singh emphasized that diversity is not equity; diversity can only lead to equity if it leads to the transformation of inequitable systems.
  • Singh noted that probation — particularly the surveillance of people on probation — is the largest part of mass incarceration for racialized and other minoritized people in the U.S. And because systems tend to replicate oppressive projects, they reflect Derek Bell’s theory of interest convergence. Bell’s theory holds that Black people’s rights advance only when they converge with White people’s interests. Thus, the wide and disproportionate reach of the criminal justice system in racialized communities reflects a divergence of interest that replicates and maintains White supremacy.
  • Asked whether research can be a path to liberation, Singh said that she considered her “gift of research” to be something that she can leverage for liberation. She said that her CBPR research allows her to document oppression by lifting the voices, the knowledge, and the gifts of individuals who normally do not have the power to do so. CBPR research thus can inform policy to help dismantle oppressive and inequitable systems.
  • Sources of inspiration: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the abolitionist activist and scholar, who has described prison abolition as a project of deep hope and reconstruction, not destruction. Also, racial, gender, and transformative justice activist Miriame Kaba, who reminds that “nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone.” Transformative change will take a chorus of many voices, not just one voice.

Resources from the Salon Discussion & Zoom Chat

Note: Because most of the articles that we highlight during the salons and chats are copyrighted, we are not able to provide active links, just citations. Please let us know if you are having trouble locating an article (info@intersectionalitytraining.com) and we’ll do our best to try and get you a copy. On Inequitable Systems and Dismantling Them
  • Bell, D. A. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518–533. https://doi.org/10.2307/1340546
  • Bonilla-Silva, E. (2017). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (5th ed.): Rowman and Littlefield.
  • Freire, P. (1970/2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th Anniversary ed.). Continuum.
  • Gilmore, R. W. (2008). Forgotten places and the seeds of grassroots planning. In C.R. Hale (Ed.), Engaging contradictions: Theory, politics, and methods of activist scholarship (pp. 31-61). GAIA Books.  https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7z63n6xr
  • Kaba, M. (2021). We do this’ til we free us: Abolitionist organizing and transforming justice (Vol. 1). Haymarket Books.
  • Kushner, R. (2019, April 17). Is prison necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore might change your mind. New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.htm
  • Lorde, A. (1984). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider (pp. 110-113). Freedom, CA: Sister Visions.
  • Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
On Intersectional Praxis 
  • Bowleg, L. (2021). “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”: Ten critical lessons for Black and other health equity researchers of color. Health Education and Behavior, 48(3). https://doi:10.1177/10901981211007402
  • Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as critical social theory. Duke University.
  • Todic, J., Cook, S. C., Spitzer-Shohat, S., Williams Jr, J. S., Battle, B. A., Jackson, J., & Chin, M. H. (2022). Critical theory, culture change, and achieving health equity in health care settings. Academic Medicine, 97(7), 977-988. 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004680 

Come join us at the Wednesday, June 14, 2023 Salon! Register Here.

Salon Title: Integrating Intersectionality within LGBTQIA+ “Cultural Competency” Training for Health Care Providers: Lessons and Challenges Salon Guest Image2 (2) Mandi Pratt-Chapman, PhD Associate Center Director for Community Outreach, Engagement and Equity, GW Cancer Center Associate Professor of Medicine The George Washington University Salon Description Salon Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 5-6:30 pm EDT