Language is an essential tool for truth that enables us to name injustices, speak back to power and build solidarity.

But language is not neutral and it does not always do what we want.

At times, it can be a necessary remedy to confusion and doubt, producing clarity and understanding when we need to make meaning and bring people together.

Just as often, it can be a poison that is used to obscure, soften and avoid complexity.

Words that soothe can also silence and statements that sound like change can be a substitute for progress.

We see this when corporations respond to a failing with polished apologies, crafted by public relations specialists, speaking of an eagerness to “listen” and “learn” so that “meaningful change” can be made.

We see this when politicians acknowledge injustice but stop short of transformation.

We see this when reform adopts careful language, where real accountability is replaced with managerial speak and empty reassurances.

Such language is a performance, not practice. It creates the appearance of action while maintaining the conditions that caused the initial harm.

Even in activist and intellectual spaces, where people are typically alert to the use, and misuse, of language, the risk can be the same.

Language is used to signal alignment with justice, but sometimes only on the surface.

The right words are repeated, such as liberation, decolonisation, intersectionality and allyship, but often without the depth or discomfort they demand.

For those who have emerged from privilege, language can become a way to gesture change, while avoiding its cost.

It permits speaking about such things as gender equity, workplace diversity and social inclusion, but rarely of sacrifice. It is a language that emphasises care and support so that personal comfort can be maintained.

“Look how caring I am. I’m not one of the bad ones.”

This is not always deliberate or intended, but it is convenient.

It allows for talking about systems and structures without confronting where you are situated within them.

It allows for appearing critical without being accountable.

As this suggests, naming oppression is far easier than being honest about what we are willing to lose in challenging it.
But this tension and discomfort should not be experienced as a failure, but rather the beginning of self-reflection.

To be clear, language matters, but we must remain alert to the double edge of our words. They can clarify and conceal, build and protect, dismantle and preserve.

If language is to serve justice, it must be more than a performance. If we fail to do this, we are not speaking truth to power. We are helping it hide.