The language of oppression is remarkably efficient.
People discriminate, exclude, marginalise, silence and oppress. Each verb is short. Each describes an action. Each makes it reasonably clear that someone is doing something to someone else.
The language of inclusion is often less decisive.
We promote equity. Foster inclusion. Raise awareness. Celebrate diversity. Challenge unconscious bias.
These phrases aren’t wrong, but they can feel curiously weightless. The language of exclusion identifies an action. The language of inclusion often describes an aspiration.
That difference matters.
When language makes action harder
Words shape what organisations can see, discuss and act upon.
“Discriminate” immediately suggests conduct and consequence. “Foster inclusion” could mean changing a recruitment process, holding a workshop, sponsoring an employee network or simply putting a photograph of a diverse group on the annual report.
One verb exposes behaviour. The other can conceal almost anything.
This may be one reason why Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programmes sometimes struggle to move from intention to practice. The language sounds positive but doesn’t always tell anyone what to do differently on Monday morning.
The vocabulary of oppression has had centuries to sharpen itself. Its effects have been experienced, resisted and named. The language of equity is newer, more contested and still evolving.
But if the language of change remains vague, accountability remains vague with it.
Naming what people actually do
A stronger vocabulary would make inclusive action easier to recognise.
Instead of saying that an organisation will “promote equity”, we might say it will:
- remove an unnecessary qualification from a recruitment process
- publish promotion outcomes by demographic group
- pay employee-network leaders for the work they undertake
- redesign a service with the people most likely to be excluded
- challenge a decision when the same voices repeatedly go unheard
- redistribute access to development, influence and opportunity
These statements contain actors and actions. They can be observed. They can also be challenged when they don’t happen.
Clear language doesn’t guarantee meaningful change, but unclear language makes avoidance much easier.
What cinema did with dialogue
Twentieth-century cinema offers an interesting parallel.
Films such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner didn’t merely represent racial conflict. They helped introduce audiences to ways of discussing prejudice, social expectation and interracial relationships that mainstream culture often avoided.
They now have obvious limitations. They reflect the assumptions of their period and frequently place white characters at the centre of stories about racism. But they demonstrate how culture can expand the language available for public discussion.
Once an experience can be named, it becomes harder to pretend it isn’t happening.
Language doesn’t simply describe social change. Sometimes it makes social change thinkable.
Do we need new words?
One possibility is to create more direct verbs for inclusive action.
Words such as “equify” or “inclusify” may sound awkward at first. Most new language does. Their attraction is that they turn an abstract ambition into an activity: to make a process more equitable or a space more inclusive.
But inventing vocabulary isn’t enough. Organisations are already very good at absorbing radical language, polishing it and returning it as corporate wallpaper.
A new verb can become another slogan.
The stronger approach may be to combine better language with specific behaviour. If we say we are “inclusifying” a service, we should be able to explain what changed, who was previously excluded and how we know the change worked.
Otherwise we have improved the sentence without improving the world.
Building a common language
DEI work often crosses professional, cultural and organisational boundaries. People may use the same term while meaning very different things.
“Fairness” can mean treating everyone identically or giving people different support according to need. “Inclusion” can mean being invited into an existing system or having the power to change it. “Diversity” can describe who is present without saying anything about who is heard.
A common vocabulary helps expose those differences.
This doesn’t require everyone to agree on every definition. It requires people to make their assumptions visible. What does equity mean in this decision? What would inclusion look like in practice? Who decides whether it has been achieved?
These questions turn comfortable language into something testable.
Language follows power as well as shaping it
There is a weakness in the linguistic argument.
Words alone don’t redistribute power. Institutions can adopt flawless DEI language while leaving recruitment, promotion, pay and decision-making untouched. Sometimes language changes because society has changed, not the other way around.
So closing the linguistic gap cannot be treated as a substitute for structural action.
But neither is language irrelevant. People need words to identify patterns, coordinate action and hold institutions accountable. Without a shared vocabulary, each incident can be dismissed as isolated or misunderstood.
Language gives experience a public form.
From intention to action
Closing the linguistic gap in DEI means making the language of inclusion as active as the language of exclusion.
It means replacing vague commitments with observable verbs. It means asking who acts, what changes and who benefits. It means refusing to let words such as “equity” and “inclusion” float above the organisation without ever touching its decisions.
The test of DEI language isn’t whether it sounds enlightened.
It is whether someone can use it to change what happens next.
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