Using These Everyday ‘Black’ Words Is More Harmful Than You Think
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Without batting an eye, we casually use everyday words that associate Blackness with evil. While using them seems innocent, their hidden impact negatively affects us. How many of these words have you used?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Without batting and I, we casually use everyday words that associate blackness with evil. |
| 0:10.7 | While using them seems innocent, their hidden impact negatively affects us. |
| 0:16.7 | How many of these words have you used? |
| 0:19.6 | I'm Len with Push Black, and this is Two Minute Black History. |
| 0:23.6 | What You Didn't Learn in School. |
| 0:43.2 | Black Mark. Black Magic, Blackhearted, Black Market. |
| 0:49.8 | We casually use words and phrases like black sheep and dark times, but their real-world implications should make us reconsider. |
| 0:52.8 | According to researchers, the use of Black to describe bad |
| 0:56.8 | things is subconsciously racialized. For so long, Blackness has connotated negativity and |
| 1:04.0 | disgrace, while white is associated with decency and purity. These connotations aren't harmless either. |
| 1:12.3 | Research about the |
| 1:13.4 | Bad is Black effect has shown that darker skin |
| 1:17.2 | is associated with perceptions of evil, |
| 1:19.5 | suggesting that dark-skinned people |
| 1:21.0 | are perceived as more likely |
| 1:22.5 | to have committed an immoral act. |
| 1:25.8 | We live in such a carceral society that this correlation leads to the disproportionate |
| 1:31.3 | criminalization and imprisonment of our people. |
| 1:35.3 | Words matter. |
| 1:37.3 | And with anti-blackness embedded in the languages we forcibly inherited due to colonialism. |
| 1:47.8 | It's important to be intentional about what we choose to say. |
| 2:03.1 | We don't have to do what they do. We don't have to do what they do. |
... |
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