Community: We work in collaboration with those who are ready to take on anti-racist work, to combat discrimination, and to create tools for action

Methodology: We are engaged in co-created, community-engaged knowledge production, where we center the voices of our community, and involve them in all aspects of the dialogue and podcast creation process.

Radical Listening: We consciously listen for the meaning that the speaker intends, suspending the process of meaning making based solely on our own point of view. We listen for power, both explicitly and implicitly articulated. Adapted from Joe Kinchloe (2009)

Interrupting Privilege | In the News:

Interrupting Privilege Starts with Listening

UW | College of Arts & Sciences – Perspectives Stories | August 1st, 2024

The Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) holds many visual histories, exhibits, and stories of the amazing legacies of African American people. It stands tall in the Central District as a catalyst for who we are, where we come from, and the glory we continue to walk into. READ MORE HERE. 

‘Interrupting Privilege’ at NAAM Is a Powerful Conversation Around Race and Its Intersections

South Seattle Emerald | July 29th, 2024

. . . On July 6, the walls of NAAM listened in on one of those conversations. Ralina L. Joseph, the host of an ongoing exhibit titled “Interrupting Privilege,” gathered community members for a powerful Radical Listening Session and discussion on activism. READ MORE HERE. 

UW Center Launches Community Conversations On Black Capitalism

The Seattle Medium | November 21st, 2022

Black capitalism, or the access of Black communities to wealth and capital, is the newest focus of the University of Washington’s Interrupting Privilege program, which seeks to provide communities and individuals with the tools to confront and interrupt power inequities in society. READ MORE HERE. 

Resistance through Resilience: A Compassionate Approach to Interrupting Privilege

Mind & Life Institute | 2022

Our two UW Centers have recognized that the dual pandemic of racism and COVID-19 exacerbated stressors on our most vulnerable populations. In response, we are creating a collaboration between the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity (CCDE) and the Resilience Lab that bridges CCDE’s landmark Interrupting Privilege program with Be REAL, a program developed by the Center for Child and Family Well-Being and supported by the Resilience Lab. READ MORE HERE. 

Interrupting Privilege: Honest Discussions On Race And Its Intersectionalities

The Seattle Medium | December 13th, 2021

On a blustery November evening in Seattle, people gathered in the Othello neighborhood of Seattle to listen radically about race and racism, and to celebrate the launch of an online repository of recorded conversations intended to help others seed and navigate similar discussions. READ MORE HERE. 

‘Interrupting Privilege’ Celebrates Radical Listening of BIPOC Experiences

South Seattle Emerald | November, 2021

When Ralina Joseph set out to create “Interrupting Privilege” six years ago, Donald Trump had just been elected into office. The following years would see the conversation around race shift once more and in a major way for the first time since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. READ MORE HERE. 

UW’s Interrupting Privilege expands with a new website, celebration:

UW News | November, 2021

Not long after the 2016 general election, faculty at the University of Washington’s Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity (CCDE) recognized a need for students, especially BIPOC students, to talk about their experience of race. READ MORE HERE. 

‘Interrupting Privilege’ Celebrates Radical Listening of BIPOC Experiences

South Seattle Emerald | November, 2021

When Ralina Joseph set out to create “Interrupting Privilege” six years ago, Donald Trump had just been elected into office. The following years would see the conversation around race shift once more and in a major way for the first time since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. READ MORE HERE. 

‘Quarantining while Black’: Conference examines twin pandemics through radical listening

UW News | May 27th, 2021

The University of Washington’s Center for Communication, Difference and Equity 2021 conference will examine ‘Quarantining while Black.’ The two-day virtual event, scheduled for the morning of June 1 and the afternoon of June 2, is an invitation to radically listen to the ways in which Black Americans in Seattle and beyond have experienced the dual pandemics: COVID-19, with its disproportionate impact on Black communities, and the worldwide racial reckoning that emerged after the murder of George Floyd. READ MORE HERE. 

Interrupting Privilege is Different in the Year 2020

Northwest African American Museum | 2020

National, racial, and class privileges are illuminated in this new age of social distancing and economic downturn. Early this year, the slogan “viruses don’t discriminate, and neither should we” circulated through much of UW’s messaging. READ MORE HERE. 

Interrupting Privilege

UW Professor of Communication Ralina Joseph Is Teaching People to Talk About Race Across Generational and Racial Lines

Medium | June 6th, 2019

On the night after the 2016 presidential election, fifty students and alumni gathered in the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center Theater. The mood was funereal as everyone took their seats and waited for Professor of Communication Ralina Joseph to get them started. For the past month, the group had been meeting weekly for intergenerational dialogue around issues of race as part of a ten-week course called Interrupting Privilege. READ MORE HERE.

Alumni-Student Seminar: Interrupting Privilege | Race & Equity Programming Spring 2019

UW Alumni Association | 2019

For a third academic year, Dr. Ralina Joseph leads this quarter-long seminar which examines issues of race, equity and social justice that are at the forefront of the national conversation. The curriculum includes compelling classes and activities, including a book talk with the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, a radical listening party and culminates in a workshop on interrupting micro-aggressions. READ MORE HERE.