Black History Month and “inflating language”

Black History Month begins today.

And instead of the platitudes that emerge like clockwork each February, I’d like us to focus on a different kind of language. In particular, a linguistic distortion that creates all kinds of problems for Black people at work.

I call this distortion “inflating language.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote a newsletter and a LinkedIn post about a linguistic distortion that I call “softening language.” This is when people, usually with social, political, or organizational power, do or say something bad and it gets described with inappropriately soft language.

(Because my LinkedIn post was focused on media language describing the January 6 coup, it went viral, ending up with more than 1.1 million views. People had a lot to say about softening language, and whether or not it is real.)

“Inflating language” is the flip side of "softening language."

Here, a person is being perfectly appropriate. But their behavior is described in an inflated way, using escalating language, so that now it seems inappropriate, and maybe even dangerous.

In my data collection, I’ve found that inflating language is applied most frequently to Black people and to female people. And when someone is both Black and female, the likelihood of inflating language to characterize them gets even higher.

For example, chances are excellent they will be called “intimidating” for just sitting at their desk working without smiling. Or “aggressive” for politely dissenting with a colleague. Or "abrasive" for speaking passionately about their work.

And we all have seen the ways that Black men (and boys) are seen as threatening for simply existing and being in a place. Waiting for a colleague to arrive at a coffee shop. Moving boxes into a mostly white building. Walking home from the convenience store with candy.

And if Black people point out bias at work or out in the world? Bias that is both real and harmful, and that directly affects their lives in negative ways?

Then inflating language calls them “threatening” and “problematic.” And they may lose their jobs.

And public figures may lose their lives.

These days, Martin Luther King Jr. is presented as paragon of non-violence and non-threatening behavior. But contemporaneous writing and cartoons, like the one above, show that at the time he was considered very threatening indeed.

The trajectory of Black women starting a job as highly regarded and then being perceived as threatening is so common that it has a name: "pet to threat."

These linguistic distortions skew our understanding of the world and make it hard for us to make clear judgments and good decisions.

Frequent softening language makes inappropriate behavior by people with power seem much less bad. Possibly all the way into appropriate.

Frequent inflating language, by contrast, presents reasonable and appropriate behavior by underrepresented people, especially Black people, as inappropriate, threatening, and possibly dangerous.

These distortions affect hiring decisions, everyday interactions, work assignments, promotions, and more.

So keep an eye out for inflating language, both in your workplace and out in the world. And call it out when you see it.

Because linguistic distortions don't just keep bias in place. They amplify it. And it's time for us to identify these mechanisms of bias and work to address them, one by one.

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