What the Nuclear Policy Community Needs to Understand About Intersectionality

Almost 24 months ago, we saw the world engage in the summer of protest. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others thrust the Black Lives Matter movement back into the spotlight. We watched as individuals and organizations alike pledged their allegiance to create new systems of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), standing in solidarity, and committing to “doing the work.” Today, we have seen the conviction of George Floyd’s killer, Dereck Chauvin, and the conviction of Gregory and Travis McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan for their murder of Ahmaud Arbery. And we are still frustrated and disillusioned by the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three protestors, two fatally, in Kenosha in “self-defense.” These moments, and many others, remind us that the reckoning kicked off 24 months ago never ended and is still in full swing. 

Like so many other fields, the nuclear community pledged alliance with those working to create systems of equity. We spoke about how we needed solidarity and started a conversation about intersectionality. But did we really understand what that meant? While the existential threat of a nuclear war is something that would affect all human beings, we have not yet learned how to convey this “intersection” with those outside the field. The Global Majority Communities most afflicted by the issues newly embraced by the nuclear security community can’t even fathom being invited to the conversation.

The reality is, if your greatest existential threat is nuclear war, then you are living a life of privilege.

In 2020, Bishop Garrison and Jon B. Wolfsthal penned a piece appealing to the national security community, arguing there can be no security abroad without addressing inequities at home. Unfortunately, our closed-door conversations professing that “nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to all people…” are bouncing off the walls in the echo chamber, void of receptivity by broader communities. This is not out of ignorance but rather out of necessity. The reality is, if your greatest existential threat is nuclear war, then you are living a life of privilege. 

The nuclear field often brings its issues to other movements, explaining how nuclear weapons are “the ultimate security issue.” The problem is, most of the people we want to build a movement with do not deal with issues of security as we know them. Instead, they deal with daily threats of insecurity, such as lack of access to housing, jobs, food, and proximate threats of violence in their communities. We cannot continue to walk into spaces with people we want to intersect with while not understanding the basics of their issues or even acknowledging that their insecurity may be more proximate than the threat of nuclear war.

The failings of the nuclear community as it begins to work on intersectionality are rooted in our inability to recognize our complacency with our own systems of inequity. As a field we moved with the times, showing our “solidarity” to other movements, like Black Lives Matter, but we failed to take real steps to work on our own systemic inequity. At the height of the summer of protest, we considered ourselves unique because we were not numb to the images of Black Death on a screen. We understood the ramifications of militarized violence. But that’s where our kinship ended. We could empathize with the effects of violence, but we could not really understand the systematized brutality.

Our inability to address how systems of oppression affect certain populations is often where we fall short. We assume that those not in the nuclear field or the dominant culture of the nuclear field must not understand the importance of our issue, and there, again, is where we go wrong. This is not the first time that we have had to think about the ways in which the movement for a nuclear weapons free world can co-exist and intersect with other movements for social justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for the abolition of nuclear weapons because it intersected with his vision of a more peaceful and equitable world. Black and Brown communities who were affected by the Manhattan Project, were aware of the effects that nuclear weapons testing could have on their communities. These communities feel the weight of the military in their daily lives, as they look outside and see the ways that they are policed. They can quickly create correlations between the images they see abroad and what is happening at home. These communities can reckon with the need for systemic change around militarism and likely see the clear connection to nuclear abolition. But these communities also see their proximate issues and understand where nuclear weapons rank as an imminent threat.

To move closer to a world free of nuclear weapons we must change the decision makers. We must move past the solidarity statements and the one-size fits all DEI strategies, and push for tangible intersections with movements, organizations, and individuals who don’t represent the current status quo of the nuclear field. No longer can the conversation be confined to the ivory towers of academia or the political chambers of Washington, DC. The conversations must become more candid with members of movements who are also working towards a more peaceful, equitable, and just world. This must become everyone’s conversation.

Reflecting on my own experiences as an American Black Woman in this field, I recognize that my identity is deeply rooted in intersectionality. The on-the-ground threats of insecurity that plague my community are worlds apart from the abstract existential threat of nuclear weapons. I reflect daily on issues such as police reform, voter suppression, gun violence, housing insecurity, environmental justice, access to healthcare and living wages, as well as other threats rooted at the intersections of my identity. If the nuclear field is to be authentic in our ability to intersect with other movements, especially those of Global Majority People, we need to educate ourselves on the priorities, needs, challenges, circumstances, perspectives, and solutions proposed by these communities. Only with this understanding can we strategize new ways for our work to be contextually relevant and respect the broader needs; and with a more strategic and inclusive focus. 

This work starts from within, and the nuclear security field has the people to spearhead these changes. We have people who come from the movements and communities where we are trying to make intersections, and we have people who are willing and able to be scholars and shepherds as we usher in a new way to work for a world without nuclear weapons. We have an opportunity to be better, and far more impactful with new voices and new approaches. No doubt there have been “strides'' made for members of certain communities, but there is so much farther to go.

Mari Faines (She/Her) is a social justice, diversity & equity activist, podcast host, and the current Director of Communications and Outreach for Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her research specializes in conflict resolution, transitional justice, and racial & systemic disparities. Faines is passionate about her work in the nuclear abolition field because of her belief that only through unselfish commitment, and authentic innovative collaboration, can we ever hope to achieve equity, justice, and peace, for all populations. Follow her on Twitter @DiasporaDiva_