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A progressive stack is a technique used to give marginalized groups greater chance to speak. The idea originated in New York City. It is sometimes an introduction to, or stepping stone to, consensus decision-making in which simple majorities have less power.
The progressive stack technique attempts to counter what its proponents believe is a flaw in traditional representative democracy, where the majority is heard while the minority or non-dominant groups are silenced or ignored. In practice, "majority culture" is interpreted by progressive stack practitioners to mean White people, men and young adults, while non-dominant groups include women, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, people of color, and very young or older people.
The "stack" in the Occupy movement is the list of speakers who are commenting on proposals or asking questions in public meetings. Anyone can request to be added to the stack. In meetings that don't use the progressive stack, people speak in the order they were added to the queue. In meetings that use the progressive stack, people from non-dominant groups are allowed to speak before people from dominant groups, by facilitators, or stack-keepers, urging speakers to "step forward, or step back" based on which racial, age, or gender group they belong to.
A. Barton Hinkle, a columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has expressed the opinion that "lining up speakers by race and gender might not seem fair on an individual level," and suggests that proponents of the progressive stack care more about class struggle than individual concerns.
Among those opposed to the concept of "progressive stack", conservative journalist and author Jim Goad commented satirically on the concept in these terms: "The concept of intersectionality is also related to the “progressive stack,” which assumes that white males at all times bear noxious degrees of unearned power, which is why they have to get to the back of the line and let all the legless black lesbians speak first."