Discriminatory Language: What It Is and How It Shows Up in News and Public Discourse

When we talk about discriminatory language, words or phrases that devalue people based on race, gender, religion, or other identity traits. Also known as hate speech, it doesn’t always shout—it whispers in headlines, slips into commentary, and hides behind "just a joke." This isn’t just about insults. It’s about who gets heard, who gets blamed, and who gets erased from the story.

Look at the news. A viral video falsely shows a Kenyan official slapping a government aide—racism, the belief that one race is superior to another, often leading to unfair treatment fuels the spread because it plays into old stereotypes about African leaders. When a woman’s competence is questioned in sports or politics while a man’s is praised for the same action, that’s sexism, bias against someone because of their gender dressed up as opinion. And when news outlets describe a Black man as "aggressive" but a white man as "assertive," they’re using language that reinforces systemic bias—without ever saying "Black people are dangerous."

Discriminatory language isn’t just in the headlines. It’s in the silence too. When a luxury tourism boom in Africa brings in $168 billion but local communities see almost none of it, the language around "investment" and "development" ignores who’s being left out. When a company sells off its tower business and calls it "strategic," but workers lose jobs without explanation, the words sound neutral—but the impact isn’t. This kind of language doesn’t need slurs to do harm. It just needs to assume some people don’t matter.

What you’ll find in these posts isn’t a list of banned words. It’s real examples of how language shapes power—from football commentary to social grant debates, from political scandals to corporate moves. You’ll see how bias hides in plain sight, how it gets repeated until it feels normal, and how the same phrases show up across continents and industries. This isn’t about policing speech. It’s about noticing who’s being shaped by it—and who’s being left out of the conversation entirely.