What is doublespeak?

Doublespeak is the deceptive use of a euphemism in order to hide some reality. And when used by people in power, doublespeak can be a form of propaganda. (Adapted from the definition from: "The Power of Doublespeak," The Clarify Institute at the University of Arizona English Department, site visited September 17, 2025)

What is a euphemism?

A euphemism is a synonym for something unpleasant or socially taboo that people use to avoid mentioning a topic, such as harm experienced by an individual or group of people, that people would rather forget. (Adapted from the definition from: "The Power of Doublespeak," The Clarify Institute at the University of Arizona English Department, site visited September 17, 2025)

Why: What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

Doublespeak affects people's perception of historical traumas as not being so bad by omitting or redacting the words that communicate the facts about the harm and replacing them with words that obscure the facts as well as lies.

Euphemisms minimize the impact of harm with flowery language. The word "plantation," when used in the context of chattel enslavement, tends to bring to mind a beautiful, palatial estate, instead of a setting for horrific violence and family separation, which was the reality for the enslaved Black and Indigenous people who worked at the sites of enslavement.

"Plantation" maintains the narrative perspective of the White enslavers, as a beautiful site, instead of the narrative perspective of the enslaved Black and Indigenous People as evidenced by the attempts by the enslaved to escape, to reunite with their loved ones, to live the free, autonomous life they knew they deserved to live. Euphemisms for White people, such as the "wealthy elite," insulate White people from accountability for the harm they caused Black people in narratives about chattel enslavement.

Instead of using euphemisms, euphemistic phrases, and euphemistic sentences, use words that state facts clearly instead of obscuring violence and harm with flowery language.

Note, for a euphemism like “plantation:

A euphemism like "plantation" is so ingrained in history communications about chattel enslavement that, to help people adopt this new language, it is necessary to introduce the common euphemism first, such as the word "plantation," followed by the more explicit language that describes the harm.

Examples:

"forced labor camp" instead of the euphemism "plantation"

"White people" instead of the euphemistic phrase "the wealthy elite" in the larger phrase "the wealthy elite who enslaved Black people"

"When Betty's mother, Flora, gave birth to her, John enslaved her and thus enslaved Betty, too." instead of the euphemistic sentence "Betty was born into slavery."

Why: What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

White is a racial category, yet often, people do not view it as such, which minimizes the harm that the existence of “White” as the dominant, powerful race or caste has in relationship to other non-White races. 

Business/marketing/communications researchers have shown through their research on corporate branding and logos that the use of all lowercase letters, lowercase words like “white” in the context of race, fosters feelings like warmth, familiarity, and safety in the reader’s mind.

Why:  What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

Despite the attempt to be inclusive with the words "enslaved people" and to emphasize the humanity of the people, Europeans/White people enslaved, "enslaved people" redacts facts of the historical period of chattel enslavement.

Why:  What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

Omitting the word “White” as an adjective to describe a group of White people or a White person in sentences, aka the silent “White,” is very common in journalistic reporting and storytelling about the past. 

1- Similar to Tenet 3, omitting “Europeans” or “White,” i.e., the “Silent White,” normalizes White people as the default person/people/human standard for comparison with non-White people.

2- Omitting racial and ethnic identities from the context of interpreting historical race-based or ethnicity-based violence creates a barrier to critically thinking about the violence and its legacy of race-based violence that descendants experience.

Why:  What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

Racism is a euphemism that does not get to the crux of what is behind the motives of White violence against Black people. It does not get to the motivation of non-White people when they enact violent acts against Black people—anti-Blackness, which is in support of pro-Whiteness. Systemic White Supremacy more aptly describes the variety of White violence and slanderous narratives about non-White people that White people have used to assert their belief in their supremacy above all races and minimize their competition for resources.

In writing, the words appear as “systemic White supremacy.”

Why:  What narrative harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

The tenet attempts to repair the narrative harm of equating enslavement in the US to enslavement that occurred outside the US, which had term limits, where the former did not. This false equation attempts to minimize the harm enslaved Black and Indigenous people experienced in the US from Europeans/White people, thus minimizing the harm their descendants continue to experience from the legacy of chattel enslavement.

Chattel enslavement is when a person enslaves not only a woman but her children as well, and the enslavement is for a lifetime or until an enslaver or government frees a person from the forced, unpaid labor. Chattel enslavement more aptly describes the system of forced labor Europeans developed and supported specifically in the United States, with their trading of Africans and later trafficking of them, from 1619 to 1865.

Why:  What narrative and archival harm does this Tenet attempt to repair?

The tenet seeks to repair the archival harm caused by amending or censoring these words (e.g., “c– -n” for “coon”), thereby preventing communities from being discoverable in archival research.

 The tenet seeks to repair the archival harm of treating any amendment of harmful language as an apology to the author for their use of the word.

Therefore:

Retain offensive or harmful, racist, sexist, Eurocentric, ableist, or homophobic language or depictions unaltered in order to document history and preserve context.

Retain the language with a “Content Warning,”  allowing readers to choose whether they wish to proceed with viewing the material.