New Millennium Mulatta and Exceptional Multiracial In
Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial (2014), Joseph looks at disdain and apprehension in the nation, as well as positive affects and possibilities, of racial representation. Looking at representations of
mixed race women, she creates the typology "new millennium
mulatta" and "exceptional multiracial" to describe modern day stereotypical appearances of multiracials. She traces the tragic mulatto stereotype to its 21st-century iteration as both the New Millennium Mulatta and the Exceptional Multiracial. The stereotypes strip representations of Black-White mixed women from performing hybridity, or what Joseph calls multiracial Blackness. According to Joseph, the New Millennium Mulatta is full of anger and punished when she speaks of race or when she chooses not to; the Exceptional Multiracial has supposedly transcended race.
Strategic Ambiguity In
Postracial Resistance: Black Women, The Media, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity (2018), Joseph writes about the
"linguistic acrobatic act" that some Black women, like
Kerry Washington, practice to negotiate their seemingly post-racial society. Strategic Ambiguity can be used as an offensive or defensive tactic but is not always the safe choice. As a postracial performance, strategic ambiguity is a method of survival.
Racialized difference Expanding on the work of communication and cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall, Joseph introduces the notion of "equity" as inseparable from "difference". She understands these concepts through publicly engaged praxis, where theory and public engagement exist in a dialectical relationship. This praxis is mirrored by her inception and direction of the (CCDE), which was launched in 2015. The research center has two main tenets of its scholarship: 1. humans negotiate difference through communication, 2. empowered systems, like the university, have a responsibility to wield the power it holds by advocating for equity. In her recent article, ''What's the Difference With 'Difference'? Equity, Communication, and the Politics of Difference'', Joseph places emphasis on the centrality of communication. Difference is an umbrella term used to indicate identity vectors such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability. She writes that we do not focus enough on the role that language plays in our racialized reality. In her words, we do not talk enough about language and inequality. She has created a physical space meant to support those who face inequity in the institution. The theory of difference that Dr. Joseph expands upon can be traced back to
Ferdinand de Saussure who wrote that meaning comes from comparison and not inherent denotation of a named object. and because we understand things as being the signifier of what they are not, then this relation can be understood in a term of endless distinction, or difference.
Jacques Derrida extended this notion of difference by defining it as "oppositional." Joseph then explains how Derrida saw this opposition as relational and about power. Derrida's read of oppositional differences can be understood by evoking the
mathematical term of difference or subtraction, as equating to less than. Derrida's
différance is unlike Saussure's in that it has two meanings, that of "differ and to defer." The first is a term of distinction, the second is a term of delay. As Joseph explains, the first meaning is about the "process of relational change" that is constantly updated. The second meaning is about temporality, "postponed for some later, never to be determined moment." Ralina Joseph uses this paradigm of the term to reflect on other terms of racialized difference including "
post-racial" and "
feminism". She links the theory of difference with the practice of equity in declaring, "d
ifference" as a word that reflects relations
. Pairing difference and equity opens up opportunities for eradicating inequity and disproportionality. Joseph believes that change in the world begins with change in classrooms, scholarship, and educational institutions. == Select works ==