Postracial Resistance : Black Women, Media, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity Paperback / softback

by Ralina L. Joseph

Part of the Critical Cultural Communication series

Paperback / softback

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Description

Winner, 2019 Outstanding Book Award, International Communication AssociationHow Black women in the spotlight negotiate the post-racial gaze of Hollywood and beyond From Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Shonda Rhimes to their audiences and the industry workers behind the scenes, Ralina L.

Joseph considers the way that Black women are required to walk a tightrope.

Do they call out racism only to face accusations of being called â€œracistsâ€? Or respond to racism in code only to face accusations of selling out?

Postracial Resistance explores how African American women celebrities, cultural producers, and audiences employ postracial discourseâ€”the notion that race and race-based discrimination are over and no longer affect peopleâ€™s everyday livesâ€”to refute postracialism itself.

In a world where theyâ€™re often written off as stereotypical â€œAngry Black Women,â€ Joseph offers that some Black women in media use â€œstrategic ambiguity,â€ deploying the failures of post-racial discourse to name racism and thus resist it. In Postracial Resistance, Joseph listens to and observes Black women as they perform and negotiate race in strategic ambiguity.

Using three methods of media analysisâ€”textual readings of the media's representation of these women; interviews with writers, producers, and studio executives; and audience ethnographies of young women viewersâ€”Joseph maps the tensions and strategies that all Black women must engage to challenge the racialized sexism of everyday life, on- and off-screen.