Co-written by intersectional Deaf authors, this article explores how White Language Supremacy (WLS) (Richardson et al,. 2021; Roth-Gordon, 2023) has impacted Black Deaf communities. Our intersectional analysis of racial and audiocentric (Eckert & Rowley, 2013) cultural hierarchies primarily focuses on Black Deaf American experiences while recognizing that WLS is not confined to the US alone and has a global impact (Richardson et al., 2021; Cushing & Clayton, 2024). Applying the critical social theory of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) to examine the “connections among experience, community, and social action” (Collins, 2019, p. 158), this article’s attention on a marginalized and under-researched cultural community illustrates both how Black Deaf communities’ languages have been marginalized, and how American Black Deaf communities resist the oppression of their languages and culture. The Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change previously published research on a deaf community that went beyond a simple additive model of intersectional identity, yet Sara Schley et al.’s (2019) analysis of power and privilege primarily emphasized parallels between different intersectional groups and did not center race–focusing on the experiences of (white) deaf women faculty.

As Black Deaf and deaf students of color, five of these authors have experienced or witnessed Anti-Black Linguistic Racism (Baker-Bell, 2020). Following the scholar-activist editors who centralize intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) in a Disability Justice, Race, and Education special issue, this article’s interrogation of WLS centers the personal narratives of Deaf “Student of Color experiences and educational journeys” rather than the lens of white scholars, reclaiming the power of (marginalized) authorship (Ramirez-Stapleton, Torres, Acha, and McHenry, 2020, p. 33). Framed by contemporary research in raciolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and composition studies, these intersectional Deaf student authors—collaborating with their multiracial Deaf writing professor—highlight the lived complexities of educational and academic inequality–resisting these inequalities in order to foster belonging in educational spaces.

References
Baker-Bell, A. (2020). Linguistic justice: Black language, literacy, identity, and pedagogy.
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Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as critical social theory. Duke University Press.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&co….

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence
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Cushing, I. & Clayton, D. (2024). Teachers challenging language discrimination in
England’s schools: A typology of resistance. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2024.2354478.

Eckert, R.C. & Rowley, A. J. (2013) Audism: A theory and practice of audiocentric privilege.
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Ramirez-Stapleton, L. D., Torres, L. E., Acha, A. & McHenry, A. (2020). Disability justice, race, and education. Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity, 6(1), 28– 39.

Richardson, E., et al. (June 2021.) “CCCC Statement on White Language Supremacy.” Conference on College Composition & Communication. Retrieved 11 June 2025, from https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/white-language-supremacy.

Roth-Gordon, J. (2023, April 19). Language and white supremacy. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Retrieved 17 Jul. 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.591.

Schley, S., Blizzard, D.L, Ross, A., Marchetti, C.E., Dannels, W.A., Beiter, K.J., Kavin, D.S. and Foster, S.B. (2019). What about me? Theorizing power and pushback in advancing marginalized identities. Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, 4(1), 01. https://doi.org/10.20897/jcasc/5844.