What’s the Difference With “Difference”? Equity, Communication, and the Politics of Difference

Authors

  • Ralina L. Joseph University of Washington, Seattle

Keywords:

difference, equity, multiculturalism, tolerance, diversity

Abstract

Can use of the word difference help communication scholars to rethink communication with equity central, with the politics of difference at its center, or, in other words, where a deviation from an assumed norm is embraced as an intrinsic and valued part of the process of change making? Does adopting the words difference and equity in lieu of tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism help bring us to a place where racialized minorities are not just window dressing, the tokens that stave off allegations of racism? In this essay, I briefly trace various discourses surrounding tolerance, multiculturalism, and diversity, before moving to difference to think to equity. Linguistic change coincides with and can foment historical and political change, yet we do not need more or different words: We need more equitable universities. Interrogating the language around this potentially change-making word uncovers, in the words of Herman Gray, a politics of difference that is unutterable without demands for equity.

Author Biography

Ralina L. Joseph, University of Washington, Seattle

Ralina L. Joseph, associate professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Communication and adjunct associate professor in the Departments of American Ethnic Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, is also the founding director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. Ralina’s first book, Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial, came out in 2013 with Duke University Press, and her second book, Postracial Resistance: Black Women and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity, is forthcoming with NYU Press.

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Published

2017-08-14

Issue

Vol. 11 (2017)

Section

Features

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