This blog is part of Action for Race Equality’s Racial Terminology Project series, exploring how racial terminology is used, understood and debated across the UK today.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
In the context of a crackdown on ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ initiatives in the US, terminology has been a key player. While this language can encompass intersecting identities beyond race, it is more frequently used euphemistically to avoid specifying race. Refusing to name a problem is akin to a refusal to acknowledge its existence.
Our research showed a conscious pushback against the ‘Americanisation’ of racial terminology in the UK, and a desire to use specific and ‘accurate’ terms that reflect the UK context. However, the ramifications of explicitly anti-DEI policies in the USA have been felt in the UK, where companies have quietly shut down or rebranded equality initiatives.
Several UK-based commentators have made recent interventions on the topic of the policing of language, and the ways in which tribalism can shut conversations down in the face of using the ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ terminology. There is a clear and present need to become more literate, engaged and open about both terminology and the material conditions we are trying to affect, such as being specific and explicit about the direction of structural racism.
Diminishing diversity initiatives
Recently, we have seen interventions from the government specifically on the language of racism and anti-racism work. The Sentencing Council implemented guidance on which would have implemented the use of pre-sentence reports for people “from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”.
Critics branded the guidance as implementing ‘two-tier justice’, and subsequent legislation was introduced to prevent ‘personal characteristics’, including in particular ‘race’, ‘religion or belief’ and ‘cultural background’ being considered when producing pre-sentence reports. A measure ostensibly designed to address racial disparities was subsequently described as racist itself, leading to it being rolled back.
Contextual racism
The question, ‘Can a Black or Brown person be racist towards another Black or Brown person?’ can elicit defensive responses, but as discussed above, context is key.
Sometimes people use ‘racism’ to mean the expression of ideas that are derogatory to someone based on their ‘race’ (skin colour, nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion etc.), and sometimes they use ‘racism’ to refer to the systems and structures of power imbalance rooted in the legacies of colonialism, slavery, and empire that mainly advantage White people and disadvantage Black and Asian people.
When anti-racism efforts are themselves described as racist, it highlights that the use of racial terminology must also be responsible and aware of the power language wields. Euphemism might be regarded as dangerous specifically because it capitulates the responsibility of constructing explicit meaning.
In some ways, ‘minority’ itself might be seen as a euphemism that conceals White supremacy, and especially in a legal context, can obscure and frustrate legislation that was created with the intention of securing rights and protections for Black and Asian people facing unequal treatment.
Sometimes participating in attempts to address this racism, can lead to you facing censure from the very structures implemented to address the disparities you experience. ‘Ethnic minorities’ is broad enough to encompass the experiences of minoritised groups that do not share a history of racialisation in the UK in the same way as Black and Asian people, for example, people from eastern Europe.
There are examples of equality laws ruling against Black and Brown communities, sometimes as pushback against positive action to address structural racism.
Drawing from our participants’ perspectives
Many participants in our research spoke of the ways in which they felt they had to minimise their language, their heritage, their culture, and even their names to become more palatable to people who had control over housing, employment, and justice.
Some participants lamented the turn away from employer networks for Black and Asian staff now being referred to as ’Talent’ Networks. This was seen as watering down of the urgent and needed focus on the issues of race and racism. This erasure goes hand in hand with the systems of power that seek to demarcate the limits of our identities. It has become more apparent that if we do not participate in the conversation around racial terminology, terms will be dictated to us.
This blog is part of a series on our Racial Terminology Project. To find out more and access our toolkit, visit here.
