[113]One consequence of an approach based on context and impact would be the acknowledgement that grounds of unfair discrimination can intersect, so that the evaluation of discriminatory impact is done not according to one ground of discrimination or another, but on a combination of both,[1] that is, globally and contextually, not separately and abstractly.[2] The objective is to determine in a qualitative rather than a quantitative way if the group concerned is subjected to scarring[3] of a sufficiently serious nature as to merit constitutional intervention. Thus, black foreigners in South Africa
- ↑ This approach seems to be contemplated by the words “on one or more grounds” in section 9(3). See n 2 above.
- ↑ Critical race feminists are at the forefront of the movement towards a contextual treatment and understanding of the lives of those who face multiple discrimination. A major thrust of the critical race genre is to focus on the multileveled identities and multiple consciousness of women of colour, in particular, who are often discriminated against on the basis of race, gender and economic class. In doing so, critical race feminism draws attention to the need for conscious consideration of fundamental rights within the context of persons whose identities may involve the intersection of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, physical disadvantage or other characteristics which often serve as the basis for unfair discrimination. See, for example, a recent anthology: Wing (ed) Critical Race Feminism, a reader (New York University Press, New York and London 1997).
- ↑ One of the many complex forms of scarring was famously described by Du Bois thus:
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro.” Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Dado, Mead and New York, 1979) at 3 quoted in Minnow Making all the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1990) at 68.
Williams refers to the same near schizophrenic experience speaking of:
“… the phenomenon of multiple consciousness, multiple voice, doublevoicedness—the shifting consciousness which is the daily experience of people of color and of women. When I was younger, I use to associate that dreamy, many sided feeling of the world with fears that I was schizophrenic. Now that I am older (and postmodern) I think that there is much sanity in that world-view. If indeed we are mirrors of each other in this society, if I have a sense of self-concept that is in any way whatsoever dependent upon the regard of others, upon the looks that I sometimes get in other people’s eyes as judgment of me if these others indeed supply some part of my sense of myself, then it makes a certain amount of social sense to be in touch with, rather than unconscious of, that doubleness of myself, that me that stares back in the eyes of others.” in Williams “Response to Mari Matsuda” (1989) 11 Womens Rights Law Reporter 11 at 11.
