Phrases like 'dark times' and 'denigrated' carry racist undertones, report claims
WASHINGTON (TND) — A new report from the research initiativeReframing Raceabout building an "anti-racist future" claims certain phrases, including "dark times" and "denigrated," should be avoided because they reinforce "the racist connotations attached to whiteness versus blackness."
“It is self-evidently not enough to be on the right side of the argument on racism,” the report reads. “This conversation needs to be unstuck in order to build collective understanding of racism, as an ideology, a practice and a source of harm, and to move towards real change and solutions.
In their report, Dr. Sanjiv Lingayah and Nina Kelly of Reframing Race claim that a number of everyday terms are in need of revision to avoid marginalizing people of color or “feed[ing] the conspiracy theories of far-right white nationalists.”
Specifically, the report calls out language that links blackness with negativity and whiteness with positivity. Terms such as “denigrated” and “dark times” compare light and dark colors, the report says, and can result in pushing Black people to the bottom of our “constructed racial hierarchy.”
The report also condemns concepts like “blushing red, ashen faces or lips turning blue” for the way they only apply to white people. These terms act as a “universal standard for all humans” and can make minorities feel excluded, the report claims.
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Further, race as a whole should be dropped from our vocabularies, the report says, as it is “socially constructed and only meaningful in relation to racism.”
“The work of social change is unpredictable, and results are not guaranteed. There is no certain way of transforming to a new paradigm and set of accompanying practices,” the report reads.
