Domestic Violence Among the Black Poor: Intersectionality and Social Justice

There are striking gender, race, and class variations in rates of domestic violence. Some leading family theorists called for an intersectional analysis of how gender, race and class systems interact to improve domestic violence theory. This article improves domestic violence theory by: 1) using the discourse, or language, of intersectionality; 2) developing a metadisciplinary ecological model of the intersectionality of gender, race and class to investigate domestic violence in lower-class Black communities; and 3) listing implications for counselors that are derived from the perspectives of intersectionality and social justice. These implications are applicable throughout those regions where, historically, colonialist enterprises established racial hierarchies, with enslaved Africans at the bottom.