In 1998, Catherine Prendergast observed that, although composition scholars sometimes identify a subject by race or ethnicity, "the legacy of racism in this country which participates in sculpting all identities--white included--is more often than not absent from the analysis of that writer's linguistic capabilities or strategies." Since then, more composition and writing center scholars have tackled racism and related issues of marginalization, inequality, and oppression in their work. Scholars have still given very little attention, though, to ways that racist and otherwise oppressive systems shape the everyday language of writers. The authors' own research stems from a single but far from simple question: how can tutors better identify and challenge the everyday, often subtle, language of oppression in their own discourse and in that of other tutors and writers in writing centers? In this essay, the authors share their story of beginning to address this question where their fellow tutors tend to start: firsthand experiences of writing and working with writers. Here, they first review other approaches to addressing oppression in writing centers and explain why they decided to begin with everyday language, student writing, and tutoring practice. They then discuss their process of forming the two-list heuristic that comprises the focus of this essay and reproduce the heuristic as the primary document readers can take away from this piece. After they introduce the two-list heuristic and explain its genesis, the authors discuss each item on the lists in turn. Finally, in their concluding section, the authors demonstrate how the heuristic has sparked provocative reflection and strengthened tutoring practices in their center.