"You're the Whitest Black Person I Know": Speaking Back to Microaggressions Through the Poetics of Interruption. Issue 3 (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sturgis, Meshell L.; Joseph, Ralina L.
• Is Part Of: Women's studies in communication. Volume 45:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 358
• Page End: 377
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Black feminist methodology -- gendered racial microaggressions -- intersectionality -- poetics of interruption; Communication -- Sex differences -- Periodicals; Women in mass media -- Periodicals; Sex differences in mass media -- Periodicals; 302.2082
• DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2021.2020193
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0749-1409

Abstract

Abstract: Anti-Black and anti-woman animus is packed into brief and subtle communication exchanges including seemingly mundane moments like jokes and compliments. The lasting negative effects of microaggressions call for what we deem poetics of interruption, a Black feminist intervention that dynamically responds to interstices of oppression. Through the creative retelling of a conversation that leads up to and follows the microaggression "You're the whitest Black person I know, " we demonstrate how the poetics of interruption holds interlocutors accountable to structural and interpersonal power imbalances through purposeful dialogue. Practicing a poetics of interruption refigures language with an anti-sexist, anti-racist aim to refute the passive-aggressive postracial language of microaggressions.