Ralina L. Joseph
Inclusive Excellence, Department of African American Studies, and Department of Communication
Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence; Professor
Point of Contact
Ralina L. Joseph
Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence; Professor of African American Studies
Pronouns: she/her
Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence; Professor of African American Studies
Pronouns: she/her
Bio:
Ralina Joseph is the Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence and a Professor of African American Studies. Before coming to UCLA, she spent years at the University of Washington, where she served as a professor and as associate dean for equity and justice, and she founded the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. Her scholarship examines racialized communication and representation, including Black representation, multiracial identity, and women-of-color feminism. She is the author of four books and has published widely across academic venues while also engaging public audiences as a speaker and advocate. In her UCLA role, she leads campus-wide inclusive excellence work that spans climate, education and research, recruitment and retention, policy development, and community relations.
Dialogue Experience/Expertise:
Ralina Joseph advances dialogue through her radical listening model, helping communities interrupt privilege and move through racial exhaustion with practical, reparative communication tools. In Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI, she explains “racial exhaustion” as the fatigue that can build up around repeated conversations about race and racism, and she offers communication practices to keep people engaged rather than shut down. She develops radical listening as a power aware practice that hears personal story alongside history, structures, and institutions, and that intentionally counters the everyday habits that stop people from listening well. Radical listening begins with careful attention and an open heart and mind, including not interrupting and avoiding “listening to argue,” so the speaker can be heard on their own terms. Her long-running program Interrupting Privilege extends this work through sustained, intergenerational dialogue about race, racism, and intersectional forms of harm, with an emphasis on learning to process discomfort and building concrete responses to microaggressions and other harmful patterns. Together, her book, model, and program offer a clear pathway for groups to recognize privilege in real time, stay present through exhaustion, and practice more honest and sustainable conversations across difference.
