Antiracist language guide

Quote by Desmond Tutu that reads: "Language us very powerful. Language does not describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes." The quote is written in orange text against a white background. There are images of flowers in multiple colors.

This educational guide is intended for library employees. Anyone is welcome to use or adapt this guide.

Why this guide?

Language is a powerful tool, and words affect people. At the University of Arizona Libraries, we're committed to creating an inclusive environment. For us, antiracism means reflecting on racist systems and histories and taking steps to advance racial justice and equity. 

The purpose of this guide is to help us all communicate in a way that validates our audience, is respectful, and helps us recognize and replace harmful language.

By being intentional about the words we use (and don't use), we play a small part in breaking the cycle of systemic racism and oppression that impacts Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. Let's also be aware that challenging racist language is an ongoing practice. Language evolves, and doing better requires patience and empathy for both ourselves and others.

Using this guide

You can use this guide to support your antiracist efforts educationally and professionally, when you are:

  • writing website content
  • writing an email, a job post, an article, or a news story 
  • creating a presentation
  • communicating with others

List of words with racist roots or connotations

We've included contexts, alternatives, and additional readings for you to learn more about the history and meaning of these words. 

Blacklist

  • Context: The association of the color black with negative, evil, wrong, or bad carries racist undertones. Because of Black people's history, associating the term black with bad can be harmful.
  • Alternatives: blocked list, closed list

Sources:

Brown bag

  • Context: Within the Black community, colorism is a significant problem that stems from slavery. Many slave owners raped enslaved women, producing biracial offspring of a lighter complexion. Slave owners gave preferential treatment to those whose complexion was a lighter brown and often their unclaimed children. A brown bag custom began in the 20th century, where a brown paper bag was placed at event entrances or merely held up to a person of color. If their skin color was darker than the bag, they were not permitted to enter or participate.
  • Alternatives: lunch in, lunch and learn

Sources: 

Cakewalk

  • Context: The cakewalk was a dance performed for white people by Black people to mock how white people danced. What was being made fun of was the depiction of how Black people could not be like white people. These contests held by owners included a competition for cake among the Black people forced to participate. The dance was later made famous through minstrel shows. Minstrel shows were theatrical shows performed by white people in black faces portraying Black people as lazy, lackadaisical, and dumb. There were also Black-only minstrel shows that exploited Black people for the same reasons.
  • Alternatives: easy, a breeze, a piece of cake

Sources: 

Grandfathered in

  • Context: The American South created absurd voting requirements that targeted Black people and made it almost impossible to vote. The name for these requirements is the "Grandfather Clause." They wrote the Amendment in a way to imply the practice was not discriminatory. They created stringent new voter requirements such as literacy tests. These requirements did not apply to people who had voted before 1867. Slaves did not know they were free until June 19, 1865. However, slavery was abolished on January 1, 1863, making it nearly impossible for a person formally kept in captivity to be legally allowed to vote.   
  • Alternatives: legacied, exempted, preapproved

Sources:

Hold down the fort

  • Context: It stems from settlers in North America building forts and guarding them against Native American intruders.
  • Alternatives: take charge, take care of things, keep watch

Source:

Peanut gallery

  • Context: Historically, the peanut gallery was an area in the theater with the cheapest seats and reserved mostly for Black people and less affluent immigrants. In the 19th and 20th-century Vaudeville theaters, theatergoers would throw peanuts at the stage in disapproval of the performance. During these two centuries, no one wanted to be associated with the peanut gallery, and today the phrase "the peanut gallery" is used about people no one wants to listen to. 
  • Alternatives: audience, crowd, hecklers

Source: 

Powwow

  • Context: A powwow is a sacred gathering of Native people. Using it to refer to an informal meeting is offensive appropriation of a term of cultural importance to Indigenous Americans.
  • Alternatives: meeting, discussion, gathering, brainstorm

Source: Merriam Webster. Powwow Definition & Meaning.

Redline; redlining

  • Context: Redlining refers to the discriminatory practices during the Jim Crow era (1877-1964) that sectioned off particular areas within cities based on race and then did not fund those areas nor include them in government-driven programs that helped communities flourish. The act of redlining led to the creation of current-day ghettos and barrios.
  • Alternatives: annotations, replacement list, editing, marking up, suggesting revisions

Source: Dworkin, D. (2019, April 1). The History of Redlining. National Housing Conference. 

Tipping point

  • Context: In the middle of the 20th century, the term tipping point became synonymous with white flight. As neighborhoods started to desegregate, white people reached a "tipping point" where they would think there were too many Black people present within their communities.
  • Alternatives: critical point, turning point, point of no return

Source:

Well-spoken; articulate (adj.)

  • Context: To refer to a person of color as "articulate" is to assume that the opposite is true; i.e. they have a dialect that is hard to understand. Even if intended as a compliment, avoid descriptors that imply or assume inferiority or reinforce stereotypes.

Source: Wong, B. (2020, July 8) .12 Common Words or Phrases with Racist Origins or Connotations. HuffPost. 

White glove service

  • Context: White glove service became popular after World War II when house servants were Black and given the role of butlers and housekeepers. The racist connotations trace back to minstrel shows where white people don Black face paint and white gloves imitating Black folks portraying them as happy-go-lucky simple people. 
  • Alternatives: VIP, premium, or personalized service

Source: Intuit Content Design. (2021). Abolishing racist language.

Whitelist

  • Context: The association of the color black with negative and white with positive reflects the negative stereotypes and carries racist undertones. 
  • Alternatives: allowed list, open list

Source: Journal of the Medical Library Association. (2018, October 1). "Blacklists" and "whitelists": a salutary warning concerning the prevalence of racist language in discussion of predatory publishing.

Further resources

Inclusive language guide- The University of Queensland Australia

Intuit Content Design: Abolish Racist Language

History.com Editors. (2021, November 18). Slavery in America

About this guide

This guide was originally created in December 2021 by Lauren Dunn, Kenya Johnson, and Rebecca Blakiston. Lauren, Community Engagement Intern, led the effort, and as a person who identifies as Black, focused on addressing anti-Black racism for the initial launch of this guide.

Language evolves, and so does this guide. This guide is not complete and does not reflect all antiracist language. We invite you to do research about words and phrases you're unsure of.