Black female scholarship matters

Abstract In this article, I reflect upon the persistence of racial injustice and sexism in the process of knowledge production. This gendered racial injustice is seen in publication rates, citation rates, and appointments to editorial boards. The underrepresentation of women in general, and black women in particular, discursively constructs scholarly enquiry as normatively white and masculine. The exclusion of nonwhite scholars partially emanates from a reliance on Euro-American theoretical frameworks that are applied, often uncritically, in other contexts as if the Euro-American experience were universal. The result is scholarship that is incongruous with local experiences and practices. As the Journal of Language and Sexuality celebrates its tenth year of publication, it would benefit from including epistemic perspectives that are pluralistic in ontologies, cosmologies, and insights.