Dictionary for Social Justice
I am humble and ready to fumble. Sharing this personal work to make it easier for others.
While this article could be viewed as performative allyship, I assure you that as an individual and company/team: we’re committed to the long-term efforts for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other fights for social justice. Stay tuned for more initiatives as we have time to educate, codify, and execute on the ideas.
Everything below is cited with the vertical line and hyperlinked credit underneath. Please use the sources as your resources. Explore further!
#Hashtags
#AllBlackLivesMatter
Movement within #BlackLivesMatter created as a necessary response. It’s a twist on the response “All Lives Matter” supporting equal support and social justice for Black women (Breonna Taylor), LGBTQIA+ (especially the trans community, such as Tony McDade and Iyanna Dior ), and other communities that are marginalized.
“We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.
We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.
We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.”
Learn more at blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe
#BlackLivesMatter
“A movement founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”
Learn More at blacklivesmatter.com/about
#BlackTransLivesMatter
“Average life expectancy is a paltry 35 years, less than half that of the average cisgender woman... Instead of being honorably covered when targeted by hate or malice, many outlets misgender and slander trans women of color in death, using mug shots, birth names, incorrect pronouns. Even worse, they speculate on so-called justifications for their murders — such as sex work, homelessness, and drug use, which removes the accountability from where it belongs: on anti-trans violence and oppression.”
Source: “Black Trans Lives Matter, Too,” Cherno Biko, Huffington Post
“Too often the violence against Black transgender people at the hands of the police are ignored when, in fact, transgender people are seven times more likely to experience physical violence when interacting with the police than non-trans people according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. And, according to a 2011 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality, nearly half of all Black transgender people have been incarcerated. This is a direct result of Black transgender people being marginalized within our own community and beyond.This movement for Black lives must include us, too.”
“The change has to include the needs and voices of Black LGBTQ people, or we risk repeating the mistakes we’re rallying against now. The hope is that we get to the other side of the era of COVID-19 and global Black Lives Matter protests, better than how we came into it. But we’re only better together.”
Source: “When Black lives matter, Black trans people must be freed from discrimination and violence,” Tiq Milan, NBC News
#DefundThePolice + #InvestInCommunities
“We call for an end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken. We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. If you’re with us, add your name to the petition right now and help us spread the word.”
Learn more at blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice.
#SayHerName
“Launched in December 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS), the #SayHerName campaign brings awareness to the often invisible names and stories of Black women and girls who have been victimized by racist police violence, and provides support to their families.
Black women and girls as young as 7 and as old as 93 have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names. Knowing their names is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for lifting up their stories which in turn provides a much clearer view of the wide-ranging circumstances that make Black women’s bodies disproportionately subject to police violence. To lift up their stories, and illuminate police violence against Black women, we need to know who they are, how they lived, and why they suffered at the hands of police.”
Learn more at aapf.org/sayhername
Accountability
Noun: the quality or state of being accountable, especially an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.
Example: public officials lacking accountability
Source: Mirriam-Webster
Anti-Blackness
Anti-Racism
“Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism.
According to the Anti-racism Digital Library, ‘Anti-racism can be defined as some form of focused and sustained action, which includes inter-cultural, inter-faith, multi-lingual and inter-abled (i.e. differently abled) communities with the intent to change a system or an institutional policy, practice, or procedure which has racist effects.’”
Source: Wikipedia
Asian/Pacific American
“Asian/Pacific American (APA) or Asian/Pacific Islander (API) is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islands Americans.
Previous to the 1960s, the only term used to refer to Americans with ancestry in Asia was "orientals." The pan-racial identity Asian American was created in the 1960s. After watching the black Civil Rights Movement, Chinese American, Filipino American, and Japanese American college students in the San Francisco Bay Area were concerned with the living conditions in primarily Asian American residential areas. Asian American college students also fought for the inclusion of their stories in college curriculum The death of Chinese American, Vincent Chin, in 1982, furthered the pan-racial movement for Asian American rights. Vincent Chin's death brought awareness of shared struggles between the various pan-ethnic Asian American groups. In the 1980s, the term Asian Pacific American began to be used in Asian American Studies and Asian American pan-racial social movements. Scholars believed that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders had shared experiences with colonialism and had been connected historically through trade and cultures.
The term Asian Pacific Islander has been controversial in academia. Scholars, such as Stacy Nguyen, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui, and Lisa Kahaleole Hall have argued that Asian American should be separate from Pacific Islander. Pacific Islanders experience a different set of struggles than Asian Americans. While Asian Americans suffer from immigration issues, Pacific Islanders are fighting for decolonization and sovereignty. The term Asian Pacific Islander often focuses on issues facing the Asian American community while ignoring issues facing the Pacific Islander community.”
Source: Wikipedia
Atonement
Noun: reparation for a wrong or injury.
Noun: (in religious contexts) reparation or expiation for sin.
Source: Oxford
BIPOC
“The term BIPOC stands for ‘Black, Indigenous, People of Color,’ it is meant to unite all people of color in the work for liberation while intentionally acknowledging that not all people of color face the same levels of injustice. By specifically naming Black and Indigenous people we are recognizing that Black and Indigenous people face the worst consequences of systemic white supremacy, classism and settler colonialism.”
Source: Sunrise Movement
Black (People)
“Of any human group having dark-colored skin, especially of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry.
Black, designating Americans of African heritage, became the most widely used and accepted term in the 1960s and 1970s, replacing Negro. It is not usually capitalized: black Americans. Through the 1980s, the more formal African American replaced black in much usage, but both are now generally acceptable. Afro-American, first recorded in the 19th century and popular in the 1960s and 1970s, is now heard mostly in anthropological and cultural contexts. Colored people, common in the early part of the 20th century, is now usually regarded as offensive, although the phrase survives in the full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. An inversion, people of color, has gained some favor, but is also used in reference to other nonwhite ethnic groups: a gathering spot for African Americans and other people of color interested in reading about their cultures. See also colored and person of color.”
Source: Oxford
Blackness
Noun: the property or quality of being black in color.
Noun: the fact or state of belonging to any human group having dark-colored skin.
Source: Oxford
Cis / Cisgender
Cisgender (sometimes cissexual, often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. For example, someone who identifies as a woman and was assigned female at birth is a cisgender woman. The term cisgender is the opposite of the word transgender.
Source: Wikipedia
Colorism
“Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice or discrimination usually from members of the same race in which people are treated differently based on the social implications from cultural meanings attached to skin color.”
Source: Wikipedia
Code Switching
Code-switching is when someone changes their language based on who they are with, typically to fit in better with that group.
There are many reasons why people code-switch. People switch their pronunciations of words and their dialects around to better fit in with a certain group.
Source: Science Leadership
Color Blindness
Racial or color blindness reflects an ideal in the society in which skin color is insignificant. The ideal was most forcefully articulated in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and International Anti-racist movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Advocates for color blindness argue that persons should be judged not by their skin color but rather by "the content of their character", in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Color-blind ideology is based on tenets of non-discrimination, due process of law, equal protection under the law, and equal opportunities regardless of race, ideas which have strongly influenced Western liberalism in the post-World War II period.
Proponents of "color-blind" practices believe that treating people equally inherently leads to a more equal society or that racism and race privilege no longer exercise the power they once did, rendering policies such as race-based affirmative action obsolete. As articulated by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
In Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society, Christopher Doob writes that "color-blind racism" represents "whites' assertion that they are living in a world where racial privilege no longer exists, but their behavior “supports” racialized structures and practices".
Source: Wikipedia
Color consciousness
Color consciousness is a theory stating that equality under the law is not enough. It rejects the concept of fundamental racial differences, but holds that physical differences such as skin color can and do negatively impact some people's life opportunities. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in 1978, stated, "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”
Source: Wikipedia
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of the society and state without discrimination or repression.
Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, and disability; and individual rights such as privacy and the freedom of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.
Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote.
Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights. They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social, and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.
Source: Wikipedia
Civil Rights Era
“The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against black people—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, black Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many white Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.”
Source: History.com
NOTE: Sadly, we’re in a new era for civil rights. The fight for civil rights and social justice continues.
Cultural Appropriation
“Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.
According to critics of the practice, cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange in that this appropriation is a form of colonialism. When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, these elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture.”
Source: Wikipedia
Criminal Justice System
The criminal-justice system consists of three main parts:
One: Law enforcement agencies, usually the police.
Two: Courts and accompanying prosecution and defence lawyers.
Three: Agencies for detaining and supervising offenders, such as prisons and probation agencies.
In the criminal justice system, these distinct agencies operate together as the principal means of maintaining the rule of law within society.
Source: Wikipedia
DEI
DEI is an acronym for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Frequently used in corporate environments, it’s important to spell it out for yourself, create a statement, plan, and commit to all three areas. Diversity is not only needed in surface level visibility (or representation), but it’s also needed in leadership and analysis. Be sure to explore the differences between equity and equality, diversity and inclusion.
“Diversity is the presence of differences that may include race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, language, (dis)ability, age, religious commitment, or political perspective. Populations that have been-and remain- underrepresented among practitioners in the field and marginalized in the broader society.
Equity is promoting justice, impartiality and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems. Tackling equity issues requires an understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society.
Inclusion is an outcome to ensure those that are diverse actually feel and/or are welcomed. Inclusion outcomes are met when you, your institution, and your program are truly inviting to all. To the degree to which diverse individuals are able to participate fully in the decision-making processes and development opportunities within an organization or group.”
Source: eXtension
Source: eXtension
Discrimination
Noun: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
Source: Oxford
Discrimination is the ability to distinguish one thing from another, often involving a value judgement.
~ Ageism, based on age
~ Classism, or class discrimination, based on social class
~ Discrimination based on skin color, or colorism, in which human beings are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to skin color
~ Economic discrimination, based on economic factors
~ Genetic discrimination, when people are treated differently because they have or are perceived to have a gene mutation that causes or increases the risk of an inherited disorder
~ Height discrimination or heightism, based on height
~ Homophobia, a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)
~ Linguistic discrimination, the unfair treatment of an individual based solely on that individual's use of language
~ Lookism, the positive stereotypes and preferential treatment given to physically attractive people, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences
~ Racism, based on social perceptions of racial differences between people
~ Religious discrimination, valuing or treating a person or group differently because of that person's or group's beliefs
~ Discrimination against atheists, the persecution of those labeled or identifying themselves as atheist
~ Religious discrimination against Neopagans, the religious persecution of those labeled or identifying themselves as Neopagan, such as Wiccans for example
! Sectarian discrimination, bigotry, discrimination or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group
~ Sexism, or gender discrimination, based on a person's sex or gender
~ Speciesism, based on the species the individual belongs to
~ Transphobia, a range of negative attitudes against transsexuality and transsexual or transgender people
~ Untouchability, the practice of ostracizing a group by segregating its members from the mainstream by social custom or legal mandate
Source: Wikipedia
Diversity
Noun: The state of being diverse; variety.
Noun: A range of different things.
Noun: The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.
Source: Oxford
Education reform
“Education Reform in the United States is the name given to the goal of changing public education. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed. However, since the 1980s, education reform has been focused on changing the existing system from one focused on inputs to one focused on outputs (i.e., student achievement). In the United States, education reform acknowledges and encourages public education as the primary source of K-12 education for American youth. Education reformers desire to make public education into a market (in the form of an input-output system), where accountability creates high-stakes from curriculum standards tied to standardized tests. As a result of this input-output system, equality has been conceptualized as an end point, which is often evidenced by an achievement gap among diverse populations. This conceptualization of education reform is based on the market-logic of competition. As a consequence, competition creates inequality which has continued to drive the market-logic of equality at an end point by reproduce the achievement gap among diverse youth. The one constant for all forms of education reform includes the idea that small changes in education will have large social returns in citizen health, wealth and well-being. For example, a stated motivation has been to reduce cost to students and society. From ancient times until the 1800s, one goal was to reduce the expense of a classical education. Ideally, classical education is undertaken with a highly educated full-time (extremely expensive) personal tutor. Historically, this was available only to the most wealthy. Encyclopedias, public libraries and grammar schools are examples of innovations intended to lower the cost of a classical education.”
Source: Wikipedia
Equality
Noun: the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.
Source: Oxford
Social equality is a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in possibly all respects, possibly including civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights and equal access to certain social goods and social services. However, it may also include health equality, economic equality and other social securities. Social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social class or caste boundaries and the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of a person's identity.[1] For example, sex, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, origin, caste or class, income or property, language, religion, convictions, opinions, health or disability must absolutely not result in unequal treatment under the law and should not reduce opportunities unjustifiably.
Equal opportunities is interpreted as being judged by ability, which is compatible with a free market economy. Relevant problems are horizontal inequality − the inequality of two persons of same origin and ability and differing opportunities given to individuals − such as in (education) or by inherited capital.
Source: Wikipedia
Equity
“The terms equality and equity are often used interchangeably; however, they differ in important ways. Equality is typically defined as treating everyone the same and giving everyone access to the same opportunities. Meanwhile, equity refers to proportional representation (by race, class, gender, etc.) in those same opportunities. To achieve equity, policies and procedures may result in an unequal distribution of resources. For example, need-based financial aid reserves money specifically for low-income students. Although unequal, this is considered equitable because it is necessary to provide access to higher education for low-income students.”
Source: Winston-Salem State University
Source: Outfront Minnesota
Gender Identity
A person’s sense of being masculine, feminine, or other gendered.
Source: University of Illinois
Source: Inside Higher Ed
GNC
Gender non-conforming. Also called genderqueer, gender variant, or gender creative. People who don't identify as the biological sex they were assigned at birth, and/or who may not conform to societal expectations of their gender. GNC individuals may or may not identify as trans. (As a parenting choice, gender creative may also refer to those who choose to raise their kids without a gender until they're old enough to form a subjective sense of self).
Source: Huffington Post
Hate Speech
Hate speech is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation".Hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation".
There has been much debate over freedom of speech, hate speech and hate speech legislation. The laws of some countries describe hate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays that incite violence or prejudicial actions against a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or which disparage or intimidate a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. The law may identify a group based on certain characteristics. In some countries, hate speech is not a legal term. Additionally in some countries, including the United States, much of what falls under the category of "hate speech" is constitutionally protected.
Source: Wikipedia
HBCU
“Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community.
There are 101 HBCUs in the United States, including both public and private institutions (down from the 121 institutions that existed during the 1930s). Of these remaining HBCU institutions in the United States, 27 offer doctoral programs, 52 offer master's programs, 83 offer bachelor's degree programs, and 38 offer associate degrees.”
Source: Wikipedia
Human rights
Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
Source: United Nations
Inclusion
Noun: the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure.
Source: Oxford
Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples, also known in some regions as First peoples, First Nations, Aboriginal peoples or Native peoples or autochthonous peoples, are ethnic groups who are the original or earliest known inhabitants of an area, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied or colonized the area more recently. Groups are usually described as indigenous when they maintain traditions or other aspects of an early culture that is associated with a given region. Not all indigenous peoples share this characteristic, as many have adopted substantial elements of a colonizing culture, such as dress, religion or language. Indigenous peoples may be settled in a given region (sedentary) or exhibit a nomadic lifestyle across a large territory, but they are generally historically associated with a specific territory on which they depend. Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world except Antarctica.
Since indigenous peoples are often faced with threats to their sovereignty, economic well-being and access to the resources on which their cultures depend, political rights have been set forth in international law by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. In 2007, the United Nations issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to guide member-state national policies to the collective rights of indigenous peoples, such as culture, identity, language and access to employment, health, education and natural resources. Estimates put the total population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million.
Source: Wikipedia
Implicit Bias
“Implicit bias exists when we unconsciously hold attitudes towards others or associate stereotypes with them. For example, we often harbor negative stereotypes about others without consciously realizing that we do so. ... Implicit bias often runs counter to people's conscious, expressed beliefs.”
Source: The University of Texas
Intersectionality
Noun: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Source: Oxford
Source: Tomorrow’s Verse
Jim Crow
The term “Jim Crow” typically refers to repressive laws and customs once used to restrict black rights, but the origin of the name itself actually dates back to before the Civil War. In the early 1830s, the white actor Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice was propelled to stardom for performing minstrel routines as the fictional “Jim Crow,” a caricature of a clumsy, dimwitted black slave. Rice claimed to have first created the character after witnessing an elderly black man singing a tune called “Jump Jim Crow” in Louisville, Kentucky. He later appropriated the Jim Crow persona into a minstrel act where he donned blackface and performed jokes and songs in a stereotypical slave dialect. For example, “Jump Jim Crow” included the popular refrain, “Weel about and turn about and do ‘jis so, eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.” Rice’s minstrel act proved a massive hit among white audiences, and he later took it on tour around the United States and Great Britain. As the show’s popularity spread, “Jim Crow” became a widely used derogatory term for blacks.
Jim Crow’s popularity as a fictional character eventually died out, but in the late 19th century the phrase found new life as a blanket term for a wave of anti-black laws laid down after Reconstruction. Some of the most common laws included restrictions on voting rights—many Southern states required literacy tests or limited suffrage to those whose grandfathers had also had the right to vote—bans on interracial relationships and clauses that allowed businesses to separate their black and white clientele. The segregationist philosophy of “separate but equal” was later upheld in the famous 1896 Supreme Court decision “Plessy vs. Ferguson,” in which the Court ruled that the state of Louisiana had the right to require different railroad cars for blacks and whites. The “Plessy” decision would eventually lead to widespread adoption of segregated restaurants, public bathrooms, water fountains and other facilities. “Separate but equal” was eventually overturned in the 1954 Supreme Court Case “Brown vs. Board of Education,” but Jim Crow’s legacy would continue to endure in some Southern states until the 1970s.
Source: History.com
Juneteenth
Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is an American holiday celebrated annually on June 19. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union general Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.
Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. It spread across the South and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a food festival. During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, it was eclipsed by the struggle for postwar civil rights, but grew in popularity again in the 1970s with a focus on African American freedom and arts. By the 21st century, Juneteenth was celebrated in most major cities across the United States. Activists are pushing Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 47 of the 50 states.
Source: Wikipedia
Latinx
Latinx is a gender-neutral neologism, sometimes used instead of Latino or Latina to refer to people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity in the United States. The ⟨-x⟩ suffix replaces the standard ⟨-o/-a⟩ ending of nouns and adjectives that are typical of grammatical gender in Spanish. Its plural is Latinxs.
The term was first seen online around 2004. It has later been used in social media by activists, students, and academics who seek to advocate for individuals living on the borderlines of gender identity. The term became widespread in US universities by 2014. Words used for similar purposes include Chicanx, Latin@ and Latine.
Reactions to the term have been mixed. Supporters say it engenders greater acceptance among non-binary gender Latinos. Critics say the term is ungrammatical and disrespectful toward the Spanish language. Both supporters and detractors point to linguistic imperialism as a reason for respectively supporting or opposing the use of the term.
Source: Wikipeda
LGBTQIA+
A common abbreviation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Genderqueer, Queer, Intersexed, Agender, Asexual, and Ally community.
Source: University of Illinois
Liberation
Noun: the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression; release.
Source: Oxford
Microaggression
Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups.
Source: Wikipedia
Non-binary
Non-binary (also spelled nonbinary), or genderqueer, is a spectrum of gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine—identities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities can fall under the transgender umbrella, since many non-binary people identify with a gender that is different from their assigned sex.
Non-binary people may identify as having two or more genders (being bigender or trigender); having no gender (agender, nongendered, genderless, genderfree or neutrois); moving between genders or having a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid); being third gender or other-gendered (a category that includes those who do not place a name to their gender).
Gender identity is separate from sexual or romantic orientation, and non-binary people have a variety of sexual orientations, just as cisgender people do.
A non-binary gender is not associated with a specific gender expression, such as androgyny. Non-binary people as a group have a wide variety of gender expressions, and some may reject gender "identities" altogether. Some non-binary people are medically treated for gender dysphoria with surgery or hormones, as trans men and women are.
Source: Wikipedia
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, or Pasifika, are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. It is a geographic and ethnic/racial term to describe the inhabitants and diaspora of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania (Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia). It is not used to describe non-indigenous inhabitants of the Pacific islands (i.e. citizens of Pacific states who are of Asian and European descent are not ethnically Pacific Islanders).
New Zealand has the largest concentration of Polynesian Pacific Islanders in the world—during the 20th century and into the 21st century the country saw a steady stream of immigration from Polynesian countries such as Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, and French Polynesia.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
Performative Allyship
Activism can’t begin and end with a hashtag…
To understand performative allyship, let’s first look at what real allyship is. An ally is someone from a nonmarginalized group who uses their privilege to advocate for a marginalized group. They transfer the benefits of their privilege to those who lack it. Performative allyship, on the other hand, is when someone from that same nonmarginalized group professes support and solidarity with a marginalized group in a way that either isn’t helpful or that actively harms that group. Performative allyship usually involves the “ally” receiving some kind of reward — on social media, it’s that virtual pat on the back for being a “good person” or “on the right side.”
I want to make clear that I do not exempt myself from this kind of behavior. I myself have spoken online with fervent vigor about the evils of factory farming, only to later that day sneak a piece of cheese from my partner’s plate. (If I didn’t order it, I’m still vegan, right?) I understand the urge to say something, especially when people are reminding you that to be silent is to be complicit. But the problem with performative allyship is not that it in itself damages, but that it excuses. It excuses privileged people from making the personal sacrifices necessary to touch the depth of the systemic issues it claims to address. If you hashtagged #sayhisname, you’ve done your bit, right? You’ve publicly declared you stand against racism and therefore can check that off your to-do list. Wrong.
Looking through the Instagram stories of apparent white allies shouting for justice, my heart broke to see their posts immediately followed by photos of what they had for lunch or something similarly unrelated. This kind of allyship is transient. A passing story. A repost. For the ’gram. It’s cheap and inauthentic.
How do you spot performative allyship? On social media, there are four clues.
1. The post is usually simple—a few words, an image or whatever the going hashtag is (in the aesthetic of their personal brand, of course). Performative allyship refuses to engage with the complexity below the surface or say anything new.
2. It almost always expresses itself as outrage, disbelief, or anger “at the injustice.” But your outrage isn’t useful — if anything, it’s a marker of your privilege, that to you racism is still surprising. Trust me when I say this is not so for black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) for whom racism is an everyday reality.
3. It refuses to acknowledge any personal responsibility for the systemic issues that provided the context for the relevant tragedy. Instead, it looks at a villain “out there” — a crooked police officer or a heartless conservative. It separates you (good) from them (bad).
4. Perhaps most noticeable, it’s usually met with praise, approval, or admiration for the person expressing it. That is its lifeblood…
Challenge yourself to do things quietly, like changing the things you buy, giving your platform to a BIPOC, or educating yourself on the history of racism without telling everyone about how educated you now are. That way, you know you’re really down for the cause — and not the cause of looking like a woke person.
Source: Holiday Phillips, Huffington Post
POC
The term "person of color" (plural: people of color, persons of color; sometimes abbreviated POC) is today primarily used in the United States to describe any person who is not considered white, including in various points in US history, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, Middle Eastern Americans and others. The term emphasizes common experiences of systemic racism. The term may also be used with other collective categories of people such as "communities of color", "men of color" (MOC), and "women of color" (WOC). The acronym BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) aims to include indigenous people and emphasize the historic oppression of black and indigenous people.
The term "colored" was originally equivalent in use to the term person of color, but usage of the appellation "colored" in the Southern United States gradually came to be restricted to "negroes", and is now considered a racial pejorative.
Source: Wikipedia
Prejudice
Prejudice is an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived, usually unfavourable, evaluation of another person based on that person's political affiliation, sex, gender, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, beauty, occupation, education, criminality, sport team affiliation or other personal characteristics.
Prejudice can also refer to unfounded or pigeonholed beliefs and it may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence". Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience". Auestad (2015) defines prejudice as characterized by 'symbolic transfer', transfer of a value-laden meaning content onto a socially formed category and then on to individuals who are taken to belong to that category, resistance to change, and overgeneralization.
Source: Wikipedia
Queer
1. An umbrella term which embraces a matrix of sexual preferences, orientations, and habits of the not-exclusively-heterosexual-and-monogamous majority. Queer includes lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transpeople, intersex persons, the radical sex communities, and many other sexually transgressive (underworld) explorers.
2. This term is sometimes used as a sexual orientation label instead of ‘bisexual’ as a way of acknowledging that there are more than two genders to be attracted to, or as a way of stating a non-heterosexual orientation without having to state who they are attracted to.
3. A reclaimed word that was formerly used solely as a slur but that has been semantically overturned by members of the maligned group, who use it as a term of defiant pride. ‘Queer’ is an example of a word undergoing this process. For decades ‘queer’ was used solely as a derogatory adjective for gays and lesbians, but in the 1980s the term began to be used by gay and lesbian activists as a term of self-identification. Eventually, it came to be used as an umbrella term that included gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. Nevertheless, a sizable percentage of people to whom this term might apply still hold ‘queer’ to be a hateful insult, and its use by heterosexuals is often considered offensive. Similarly, other reclaimed words are usually offensive to the in-group when used by outsiders, so extreme caution must be taken concerning their use when one is not a member of the group.
Source: University of Illinois
Race
A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The term was first used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations. By the 17th century the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits. Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.
Source: Wikipedia
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities.
In terms of political systems (e.g., apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices or laws, racist ideology may include associated social aspects such as nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, and supremacism.
While the concepts of race and ethnicity are considered to be separate in contemporary social science, the two terms have a long history of equivalence in popular usage and older social science literature. "Ethnicity" is often used in a sense close to one traditionally attributed to "race": the division of human groups based on qualities assumed to be essential or innate to the group (e.g. shared ancestry or shared behavior). Therefore, racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms "racial" and "ethnic" discrimination. The UN Convention further concludes that superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous. The Convention also declared that there is no justification for racial discrimination, anywhere, in theory or in practice.
Racism is a relatively modern concept, arising in the European age of imperialism, the subsequent growth of capitalism, and especially the Atlantic slave trade, of which it was a major driving force. It was also a major force behind racial segregation especially in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and South Africa under apartheid; 19th and 20th century racism in Western culture is particularly well documented and constitutes a reference point in studies and discourses about racism. Racism has played a role in genocides such as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and genocide of Serbs, and colonial projects including the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia as well as the Soviet deportations of indigenous minorities. Indigenous peoples have been—and are—often subject to racist attitudes.
Source: Wikipedia
Racism: Individual
Individual Racism refers to an individual's racist assumptions, beliefs or behaviours and is "a form of racial discrimination that stems from conscious and unconscious, personal prejudice" (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 329). Individual Racism is connected to/learned from broader socio-economic histories and processes and is supported and reinforced by systemic racism.
Because we live in such a culture of individualism (and with the privilege of freedom of speech), some people argue that their statements/ideas are not racist because they are just "personal opinion." Here, it is important to point out how individualism functions to erase hierarchies of power, and to connect unrecognized personal ideologies to larger racial or systemic ones. (That is, individualism can be used as a defensive reaction.) This is why it is crucial to understand systemic racism and how it operates.
Source: ACLRC
Racism: Systemic, Institutional, or Structural
Systemic Racism includes the policies and practices entrenched in established institutions, which result in the exclusion or promotion of designated groups. It differs from overt discrimination in that no individual intent is necessary. (Race Relations: Myths and Facts, Toronto)
It manifests itself in two ways:
1. institutional racism: racial discrimination that derives from individuals carrying out the dictates of others who are prejudiced or of a prejudiced society
2. structural racism: inequalities rooted in the system-wide operation of a society that excludes substantial numbers of members of particular groups from significant participation in major social institutions. (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 352)
Some forms of systemic racism may be more explicit or easier (for some) to identify than others: the Indian Residential School System in Canada; Jim Crow Laws in the US; the exclusion of African-American golfers from elite, private golf courses in the US; the way that "universal suffrage" did not include Indigenous North American women (nor did Indigenous men receive the vote until 1960, unless they gave up their status/identity as Indigenous)…
Fortunately, individuals can be anti-racist within, and despite, systems and institutions that are systemically racist.
Source: ACLRC
Institutional racism (also known as systemic racism) is a form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education, among other issues.
The term "institutional racism" was first coined and first used in 1967 by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton in Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. Carmichael and Hamilton wrote that while individual racism is often identifiable because of its overt nature, institutional racism is less perceptible because of its "less overt, far more subtle" nature. Institutional racism "originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than [individual racism]". They gave examples:
When terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city – Birmingham, Alabama – five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which most people will condemn. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.
Institutional racism was defined by Sir William Macpherson in the UK's Lawrence report (1999) as: "The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."
Source: Wikipedia
A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist.
Source: Aspen Institute
Reparations
Reparations for slavery is a political justice concept that argues that reparations should be paid to the descendants of slaves. Currently, the call for reparations is mainly made on behalf of descendants of slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa who were enslaved and then trafficked to the Americas as a consequence of the Atlantic slave trade. The most notable demands for reparations have been made in the United Kingdom and the United States.
These reparations are hypothetical; that is, they have never been made. In contrast, some slave owners received compensated emancipation, the money that some governments paid some slave owners when slavery was abolished, as compensation for the loss of their property.
Source: Wikipedia
We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to t
he past—at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge—that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.
And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans.
Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.
What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
Source: “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
Revisionism
In historiography, the term historical revisionism identifies the re-interpretation of an historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or time-span or phenomenon, introducing contrary evidence, or reinterpreting the motivations and decisions of the people involved. The revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation, which then results in revised history. In dramatic cases, revisionism involves a reversal of older moral judgments.
At a basic level, legitimate historical revisionism is a common and not especially controversial process of developing and refining the writing of histories. Much more controversial is the reversal of moral findings, whereby what mainstream historians had considered (for example) positive forces are depicted as negative. Such revisionism, if challenged (especially in heated terms) by the supporters of the previous view, can become an illegitimate form of historical revisionism known as historical negationism if it involves inappropriate methods such as:
~the use of forged documents or implausible distrust of genuine documents
~attributing false conclusions to books and sources
~manipulating statistical data
~deliberately mis-translating texts
This type of historical revisionism can present a re-interpretation of the moral meaning of the historical record. Negationists use the term "revisionism" to portray their efforts as legitimate historical revisionism. This is especially the case when "revisionism" relates to Holocaust denial.
Source: Wikipedia
Second Class Citizens
A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, outlaws or criminals, second-class citizens have limited legal rights, civil rights and socioeconomic opportunities, and are often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors. However, they are different from "less-than-whole citizens", as second-class citizens are often disregarded by the law or have it used to harass them (see police misconduct and racial profiling). Systems with de facto second-class citizenry are generally regarded as violating human rights.
Typical conditions facing second-class citizens include but are not limited to:
~ disenfranchisement (a lack or loss of voting rights)
~ limitations on civil or military service (not including conscription in every case)
~ restrictions on language, religion, education
~ lack of freedom of movement and association
~ limitations on weapons ownership
~ restrictions on marriage
~ restrictions on housing
~ restrictions on property ownershipThe category is normally unofficial and mostly academic, and the term itself is generally used as a pejorative and governments will typically deny the existence of a second class within the polity. As an informal category, second-class citizenship is not objectively measured; however, cases such as the American South under segregation, aborigines in Australia prior to 1967, deported ethnic groups designated as "special settlers" in the USSR, apartheid in South Africa, women in Saudi Arabia under Saudi law, Dalits in India and Nepal, and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland during the parliamentary era are all examples of groups that have been historically described as having second-class citizenry. Historically, before the mid-20th century, this policy was applied by some European Colonial Empires on colonial residents of overseas holdings.
A resident alien or foreign national, and children in general, fit most definitions of second-class citizen. This does not mean that they do not have any legal protections, nor do they lack acceptance by the local population. A naturalized citizen carries essentially the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen (a possible exception being ineligibility for certain public offices), and is also legally protected.
Source: Wikipedia
Sex
A medical term designating a certain combination of gonads, chromosomes, external gender organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormonal balances. Because usually subdivided into ‘male’ and ‘female’, this category does not recognize the existence of intersexed bodies.
Source: University of Illinois
Sex Identity
How a person identifies physically: female, male, in between, beyond, or neither.
Source: University of Illinois
Sexual Orientation
The desire for intimate emotional and/or sexual relationships with people of the same gender/sex, another gender/sex, or multiple genders/sexes.
Source: University of Illinois
Trans / Transgender
Transgender is a person who lives as a member of a gender other than that expected based on anatomical sex. Sexual orientation varies and is not dependent on gender identity. Trans is the abbreviation that is sometimes used to refer to a gender variant person. This use allows a person to state a gender variant identity without having to disclose hormonal or surgical status/intentions. This term is sometimes used to refer to the gender variant community as a whole.
Source: University of Illinois
Source: ReachOut
Social Justice
Noun: justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.
Source: Oxford
Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society, as measured by the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges. In Western as well as in older Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive what was their due from society. In the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice.
Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure fair distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
Interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society are mediated by differences in cultural traditions, some of which emphasize the individual responsibility toward society and others the equilibrium between access to power and its responsible use. Hence, social justice is invoked today while reinterpreting historical figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas, in philosophical debates about differences among human beings, in efforts for gender, ethnic, and social equality, for advocating justice for migrants, prisoners, the environment, and the physically and developmentally disabled.
Source: Wikipedia
White (people)
Those who have come to be known as white.
Source: People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Undoing Racism Workshop
Source: PISAB.org
White people is a racial classification and skin color specifier, used mostly and often exclusively for people of European descent; depending on context, nationality, and point of view. The term has at times been expanded to encompass persons of Middle Eastern and North African descent (for example, in the US Census definition), persons who are often considered non-white in other contexts. The usage of "white people" or a "white race" for a large group of mainly or exclusively European populations, defined by their light skin, among other physical characteristics, and contrasting with "black people", Amerindians, and other "colored" people or "persons of color", originated in the 17th century. It was only during the 19th century that this vague category was transformed in a quasi-scientific system of race and skin color relations.
The concept of a unified white race did not achieve universal acceptance in Europe when it first came into use in the 17th century, or in the centuries afterward. Nazi Germany regarded some European peoples such as Slavs as racially distinct from themselves. Prior to the modern age, no European peoples regarded themselves as "white", but rather defined their race, ancestry, or ethnicity in terms of their nationality. Moreover, there is no accepted standard for determining the geographic barrier between white and non-white people. Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "white race" as socially constructed. As a group with several different potential boundaries, it is an example of a fuzzy concept.
The concept of whiteness has particular resonance in the Anglosphere: e.g., in the United States (White Americans), Canada (white Canadians), Australia (white Australians), New Zealand (white New Zealanders), the United Kingdom (white British), and South Africa (white South Africans). In much of the rest of Europe, the distinction between race and nationality is more blurred; when people are asked to describe their race or ancestry, they often describe it in terms of their nationality. Various social constructions of whiteness have been significant to national identity, public policy, religion, population statistics, racial segregation, affirmative action, white privilege, eugenics, racial marginalization, and racial quotas.
The term "white race" or "white people" entered the major European languages in the later 17th century, in the context of racialized slavery and unequal social status in the European colonies. Description of populations as "white" in reference to their skin color predates this notion and is occasionally found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient or medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a white, pan-European race. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than race.
Source: Wikipedia
White Fragility
~2 Weeks of Discomfort for White People vs. 400 Years of Oppression for BIPOC
Noun: discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice.
Source: Oxford
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress. Although white racial insulation is somewhat mediated by social class (with poor and working class urban whites being generally less racially insulated than suburban or rural whites), the larger social environment insulates and protects whites as a group through institutions, cultural representations, media, school textbooks, movies, advertising, and dominant discourses. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar. In turn, whites are often at a loss for how to respond in constructive ways., as we have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides. leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This book explicates the dynamics of White Fragility and how we might build our capacity in the on-going work towards racial justice.
Source: Dr. Robin DiAngelo, Author ofWhite Fragility
White Privilege
White privilege (or white skin privilege) refers to societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots in European colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade, and the growth of the Second British Empire after 1783, white privilege has developed in circumstances that have broadly sought to protect white racial privileges, various national citizenships and other rights or special benefits.
In the study of white privilege, and its broader field of whiteness studies, academic perspectives such as critical race theory use the concept to analyze how racism and racialized societies affect the lives of white or white-skinned people. For example, Peggy McIntosh describes the advantages that whites in Western societies enjoy and non-whites do not experience, as "an invisible package of unearned assets". White privilege denotes both obvious and less obvious passive advantages that white people may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice. These include cultural affirmations of one's own worth; presumed greater social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely. The effects can be seen in professional, educational, and personal contexts. The concept of white privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal.
Some scholars say that the term uses the concept of "whiteness" as a proxy for class or other social privilege or as a distraction from deeper underlying problems of inequality. Others state that it is not that whiteness is a proxy but that many other social privileges are interconnected with it, requiring complex and careful analysis to identify how whiteness contributes to privilege. Other commentators propose alternative definitions of whiteness and exceptions to or limits of white identity, arguing that the concept of white privilege ignores important differences between white subpopulations and individuals and suggesting that the notion of whiteness cannot be inclusive of all white people. They note the problem of acknowledging the diversity of people of color and ethnicity within these groups.
Some have commented that the "academic-sounding concept of white privilege" sometimes elicits defensiveness and misunderstanding among white people, in part due to how the concept of white privilege was rapidly brought into the mainstream spotlight through social media campaigns such as Black Lives Matter. As an academic concept that was only recently brought into the mainstream, the concept of white privilege is frequently misinterpreted by non-academics; some academics, having studied white privilege undisturbed for decades, have been surprised by the seemingly sudden hostility from right-wing critics since approximately 2014.
Source: Wikipedia
Whitesplaining
Whitesplaining is the act of a white person explaining topics to people of color, often in an obliviously condescending manner, and especially regarding race- or injustice-related issues.
Source: Dictionary.com
White Supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the racist belief that white people are superior to people of other races and therefore should be dominant over them. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and often relies on pseudoscientific arguments. Like most similar movements such as neo-Nazism, white supremacists typically oppose members of other races as well as Jews.
The term is also used to describe a political ideology that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical, or institutional domination by white people (as evidenced by historical and contemporary sociopolitical structures such as the Atlantic slave trade, Jim Crow laws in the United States, the set of "White Australia" policies from the 1890s until the mid-1970s, and apartheid in South Africa). Different forms of white supremacism put forth different conceptions of who is considered white, and different groups of white supremacists identify various racial and cultural groups as their primary enemy.
In academic usage, particularly in usage which draws on critical race theory or intersectionality, the term "white supremacy" can also refer to a political or socioeconomic system, in which white people enjoy a structural advantage (privilege) over other ethnic groups, on both a collective and individual level.
Source: Wikipedia
Reminder
I am humble and ready to fumble. Sharing this personal work to make it easier for others.
While this article could be viewed as performative allyship, I assure you that as an individual and company/team: we’re committed to the long-term efforts for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other fights for social justice. Stay tuned for more initiatives as we have time to educate, codify, and execute on the ideas.
Everything is cited with the vertical line and credit underneath. Please use the sources as your resources. Explore further!
