Y10W20VC Theme Words — Race & systemic inequality

As a noun, privilege is an advantage or benefit available to some people but not others, often due to social, economic, or historical factors. In discussions of race, social privilege refers to unearned advantages that benefit members of dominant groups.

Word family: privileged (adj.), underprivileged (adj.)

Example: White privilege does not mean that white individuals have had easy lives, but that their race has not been an additional barrier to their opportunities.

Synonyms: advantage, entitlement, benefit

Collocations: white privilege, social privilege, privilege of

Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different groups of people, particularly based on characteristics such as race, gender, sexuality, or disability.

Word Breakdown: dis- (prefix meaning ‘apart’ or ‘away’)

Word family: discriminate (v.), discriminatory (adj.)

Example: Systemic discrimination operates not only through individual acts of prejudice but through institutional policies and practices that produce unequal outcomes.

Synonyms: prejudice, bias, unfair treatment

Collocations: racial discrimination, systemic discrimination, experience discrimination

Reform refers to the process of making changes to a system, institution, or practice to improve it, particularly by removing injustice or inequality.

Word Breakdown: re- (prefix meaning ‘again’ or ‘anew’)

Word family: reformer (n.), reformist (adj.)

Example: Activists argue that police reform must go beyond changing individual officer behaviour to address the structural conditions that produce racially biased outcomes.

Synonyms: change, improvement, overhaul

Collocations: police reform, systemic reform, call for reform

To invoke means to call upon something — an idea, authority, principle, or tradition — as a basis for an argument, action, or claim.

Word Breakdown: in- (prefix meaning ‘in’ or ‘upon’)

Word family: invocation (n.)

Example: The protesters invoked the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to challenge the government’s detention policy.

Synonyms: appeal to, cite, call upon

Collocations: invoke a principle, invoke a right, invoke the name of

To evoke means to bring a feeling, memory, image, or response to mind, often through language, imagery, or sensory experience.

Word Breakdown: e- (prefix meaning ‘out’ or ‘from’)

Word family: evocation (n.), evocative (adj.)

Example: The author’s use of the colour red throughout the novel evokes a sense of danger and urgency that intensifies as the story unfolds.

Synonyms: bring to mind, suggest, produce

Collocations: evoke emotion, evoke a sense of, powerfully evoke

To allude means to make an indirect or passing reference to something without stating it explicitly, expecting the reader or listener to recognise the reference.

Word Breakdown: al- (prefix meaning ‘to’ or ‘toward’, variant of ad-)

Word family: allusion (n.), allusive (adj.)

Example: Without naming the incident directly, the author alludes to a real historical event through carefully chosen imagery and dates.

Synonyms: refer to, hint at, suggest

Collocations: allude to, allude indirectly, subtle allusion

To conjure means to call something into the mind or imagination, making an idea, image, or feeling appear vividly and with force.

Word family: conjuration (n.)

Example: The opening description of the city at dawn conjures an image of fragile hope in the mind of the reader.

Synonyms: evoke, summon, produce

Collocations: conjure an image, conjure up, conjure a sense of

To reference means to mention or cite something in a way that acknowledges or draws attention to it, either formally or informally.

Word Breakdown: re- (prefix meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’)

Word family: referential (adj.)

Example: The speech explicitly references the legacy of the civil rights movement to situate the current protest within a longer historical struggle.

Synonyms: cite, mention, acknowledge

Collocations: reference a source, explicitly referenced, reference to

The phrase ‘X invokes’ is used in academic writing to describe how a writer, speaker, or text calls upon an idea, authority, principle, or tradition as the basis for an argument or claim.

Example: Toni Morrison invokes the history of slavery not as a distant past but as an active presence that continues to shape contemporary African American experience.

Synonyms: X appeals to, X draws upon, X calls upon

Collocations: the author invokes, the text invokes, the speech invokes