Ralina Joseph

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Ralina Joseph

Professor of African American Studies & Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence

Biography

Dr. Ralina L. Joseph is Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence and Professor of African American Studies at UCLA. Her career spans over two decades of advancing inclusive excellence in higher education. At the University of Washington, she served as Professor of Communication and Associate Dean of Equity & Justice, leading initiatives for over 17,000 graduate students. She founded the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity (CCDE), known for programs like “Interrupting Privilege,” which fosters transformative conversations on race and power.

Dr. Joseph is the author of four books, including Racial Exhaustion: How to Move through Racism in the Wake of DEI (NYU Press, 2025). Her research focuses on the intersectional nuances of racialized communication, Black representation, multiracial identity, and women of color feminism. She is widely recognized for her concept of “strategic ambiguity” in postracial discourse. A celebrated mentor and public scholar, Dr. Joseph has received numerous awards and is a frequent speaker nationwide. She is also a mother and community advocate dedicated to using dialogue as a tool for justice.

Education

Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2005

B.A., American Civilization, Brown University, 1996

Publications

Books

  • Ralina L. Joseph, (In press) Racial Exhaustion: How to Move through Racism in the Wake of DEI, New York: New York University Press, 2025.
  • Ralina L. Joseph & Allison Briscoe-Smith, Generation Mixed Goes to School: Radically Listening to Multiracial Kids. New York: Teachers College Press, 2021.
  • Ralina L. Joseph, Postracial Resistance: Black Women, Media Culture, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity. New York: New York University Press, 2018.
  • Ralina L. Joseph.  Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013.

Samples of Journal Articles and Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters

  • Ralina L. Joseph, “Radical Listening for Racial Exhaustion,” International Journal of Listening. July 2025, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2025.2527734
  • Helen Rosenboom and Ralina L. Joseph, “‘What Makes You Think I’m African American?’: Identity Performance, Code Switching, and the Strong Black Woman on Love is Blind,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 42:3, September 2024, pp. 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2024.2385459
  • Jas L. Moultrie and Ralina L. Joseph, “A Joyful Unsettling: Considering Black Media Studies and Social Justice,” Oxford International Handbook on Media and Social Justice, eds. Srividya Ramasubramanian and Omotayo Banjo. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
  • Meshell Sturgis and Ralina L. Joseph, (2022), “‘You’re the Whitest Black Person I Know’: Speaking Back to Microaggressions through the Poetics of Interruption,” Women’s Studies in Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2021.2020193
  • Manoucheka Celeste and Ralina L. Joseph, “Prying Open the Doors of Communication: Women of Color Mentoring in the Field of Communication,” Communication, Culture, and Critique Vol 14, No. 4, December 2021 pp. 657-662 https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab054; Co-editors for special forum pp. 657-695.
  • Thomas Locke and Ralina L. Joseph (2021), “All Intersectionality is Not the Same: Why Kamala Harris is Our VP and not Stacey Abrams,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 107:4, pp. 451-456.
  • Anjuli Joshi Brekke, Ralina L. Joseph, and Naheed Aaftaab, “I Address Race Because Race Addresses Me”: Women of Color Show Receipts through Digital Storytelling,” Review of Communication, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2021, pp. 44-57, https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2021.1895294
  • Marcus Johnson and Ralina L. Joseph, “Black Cultural Studies is Intersectionality,” International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 23, No. 6, 2020, pp. 833-839. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367877920953158
  • Meshell Sturgis and Ralina L. Joseph, “Visualizing Mixed Race and Genetics,” in Race and Media: Critical Approaches, ed. Lori Kido Lopez, NYU Press, 2020, pp. 39-56.
  • Ralina L. Joseph, “‘Mutts Like Me’: Mixed-Race African American Humor in the Obama Era,” in Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century, eds. Simone Drake and Dwan Henderson Simmons, Duke University Press, 2020, pp. 29-43.
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