Storytelling is the best tool we have for effectively communicating about big, systemic issues like racism, classism, and transphobia. People think in stories. When we don’t have a narrative that tells us how to think about an issue or when the narrative is inaccurate, partial, or too abstract, we fill in the gaps, and the stories we build in our own minds can be flawed and full of biases and assumptions.

Great stories help us understand systemic issues because they transport us into the lives of the characters. We see the world through their eyes, and we are changed by their experiences because they feel like our own. Great stories can counter existing beliefs by rewriting someone's understanding. They can help communities radically imagine new ways of being and seeing.

Many people communicating for social change are exploring how to tell diverse and inclusive stories that do the important work of centering marginalized communities while building understanding about how inequality persists. Intersectionality—a theory with roots in Black feminist thought, including the work of Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, and Kimberlé Crenshaw—can help.

In short, intersectionality is a prism for illuminating how racism, sexism, and classism (and many other “isms” that affect people based on their religion, disabilities, physical appearance, sexuality, and nationality) interact and shape experiences within social institutions like education, health care, criminal justice, government policy, and media. Intersectionality scholars analyze the widespread influence of these isms in every fiber of our society— the stories we celebrate, the policies we implement, and how we interact with each other. These isms never act alone. They are interlocking, and they affect individuals differently. When we don’t apply an intersectional lens to communications about systemic issues, we’re likely to get our communications wrong.

Read the full article about intersectional storytelling by Annie Neimand, Natalie Asorey, Ann Christiano, and Zakyree Wallace at Stanford Social Innovation Review.