detroit memoir, part two

One of my projects this term is an examination of several recent memoirs written by Detroiters. I've been looking at and thinking about, for example, Down Through The Years by Erma Henderson, longtime president of Detroit City Council. I'm thinking about Henderson's version of intersectionality, about her consciousness that refuses to play hierarchy games when it comes to statements about her own identity, and her constant move to situate that consciousness in the realm of the spiritual. Here's Henderson's voice:

"It is important to be very careful when you make a statement that begins, 'I am.' As you read my story, pay careful attention to who I declare myself to be, using I am. When I ran for Detroit City Council in 1972, opponents tried to tell me who I was and why I would not win. They said I was poor, that I was African American, and that I was a woman. I replied to them that 'I may be poor, and I am African American, and I am a woman, ad I am goig to win this election.' So think carefully about who you say you are. Again, spiritually, you and I are alike. It is only in our thinking that we are different." (8)

What does this mean in light of Detroit's broader community identity? I think Henderson is instructive, for instance, in thinking about recent analyses of "white flight" and/or/vs. "green flight" as (competing) narratives for explaining the population drain. Race and class are facts for Henderson, material realities that she doesn't necessarily separate--and certainly doesn't shy away from critiquing. But is Henderson's critique of Detroit *materialist* in its orientation, given her emphasis on the spiritual?

Henderson:
"Leadership has nothing to do with one's formal education, one's wealth, one's race, or one's age. There is a leader within each of us, waiting to emerge."

Statements like this fill Henderson's narrative. As with much of the language that Henderson uses, it's easy to dismiss this statement as trite, as cliche, but here and elsewhere we see her seemless juxtaposition of identity markers. Intersectionality. She's not denying the realities of race, class, etc., in some kind of "we're all the same" fashion; rather, she's refusing to parse out identity.