Updating Our Language - Day 8
“Uppity”
Today people use the word uppity in a way that’s synonymous with “snobby” or “stuck up”, but the history of the word is much darker than that. Racist southerners used it for Black people who ‘didn’t know their place’.
To use it today, especially when talking about a person of color, is incredibly harmful and offensive.
Throughout July we will be making posts about updating our language.
We live in a society that has normalized using many words and phrases with racist origins.
Part of the anti-racist work involves acknowledging you have used them, beginning the process of eliminating them from your vocabulary, and gently correcting others when you hear them used.
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