College Composition and Communication Feb 2025

“Because We’re Going to Mess Up”: Practices for Accountability—Not a Piecemeal Approach

Beth Godbee ; Rasha Diab

Abstract

What are we in rhetoric, writing, and literacy studies currently practicing? What practices do harm and, in contrast, which counter harm? How do we disrupt everyday, cumulative, and structural injustices and instead invest in accountability? In addition to asking these and other questions, this article engages four accountability practices that are necessary for countering the ongoing violence of the mythical norm (Lorde), of domination, and of harm within higher education: (1) resisting denial of ongoing harms; (2) recognizing normalized violence; (3) divesting from whiteness; and (4) investing in a consistent, relational approach to seeking justice. These practices help us tap into and amplify the work of BIPOC feminist and womanist educators-scholars-activists (including Ahmed, Gumbs, hooks, Mingus, and Royster) who have been countering epistemic injustice by building linguistic resources and expanding what we can name. These practices are part of a whole in which taking a piecemeal approach entrenches the current state of affairs: white supremacy status quo and normalized violence. Together, these add up to a call for striving toward justice in a sustained, momentum-gathering way.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2025-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc2025763396
Open Access
Closed
Topics
literacy studies race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Ore et al. (2021)
    Symposium: Diversity Is Not Justice: Working toward Radical Transformation and …
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Riley-Mukavetz (2020)
    Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmothers
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Diab et al. (2019)
    Rhetorical and Pedagogical Interventions for Countering Microaggressions
    Pedagogy
  4. Royster (1996)
    When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own
    College Composition and Communication
Also cites 12 works outside this index ↓
  1. Ahmed (2014)
    The Cultural Politics of Emotion
     ↗
  2. Baker-Bell (2020)
    Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy
     ↗
  3. Burrows (2020)
    Rhetorical Crossover: The Black Presence in White Culture
     ↗
  4. Crenshaw (1991)
    Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and the Violence against Women…
    Stanford Law Review  ↗
  5. Diab (2016)
    Performing Antiracist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication
     ↗
  6. Flores (2016)
    Between Abundance and Marginalization: The Imperative of Racial Rhetorical Criticism
    Review of Communication  ↗
  7. Fricker (2007)
    Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing
     ↗
  8. Galtung (1990)
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    Journal of Peace Research  ↗
  9. Muhs (2012)
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  10. Pham (2019)
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    The Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
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    Rhetoric’s Rac(e/ist) Problems
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CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →

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