allyship

The Rochester Racial Justice Toolkit describes allyship as "a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people."

 

Being an ally means learning from and listening to marginalized groups, empowering them, advocating for them, and looking inward to recognize your own bias and privilege.

 

anti-racist

Activists and leading scholars have argued that it's not enough for allies to say they're "not racist." Instead, they must actively adopt anti-racism, a set of beliefs and actions that oppose racism and promote the inclusion and equality of Black and brown people in society.

Ibram X. Kendi helped popularize the phrase "anti-racist"

with his best-selling book on the subject.

bias

Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

BIPOC

This acronym, which stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of color, has gained popularity as a more inclusive term than "people of color" when talking about marginalized groups affected by racism.

 

cisgender

It's important to know that one's sex and one's gender are two different things. "Cisgender" is a term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.

 

It's a term used to ensure that when we're talking about people who are trans, we don't use a problematic term like 'normal' to describe those who are cisgender.

 

Cisgender people experience privilege in many aspects of life, from being able to easily find a restroom that matches their gender expression to having their sex listed on their driver's license match their gender.

 

critical race theory

Critical race theory is a school of thought that says that legal institutions and the law are inherently racist, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.  The framework, which gained traction in the late 1980s, recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society, according to the University of California, Los Angeles.  It also says that race isn't a biological reality, but a social construct made by white people to maintain power. 

 

cultural appropriation

Cultural appropriation is the taking of "creative or artistic forms, themes, or practices by one cultural group from another," according to Oxford Reference.

 

"It is in general used to describe Western appropriations of non‐Western or non‐white forms, and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance," the definition says. An example of this is a white woman wearing her hair in box braids. 

 

"The primary problem lies in the fact while black women receive cultural repercussions, like being fired from their job, for wearing dreadlocks or braids, women who aren't black can sport the same hairstyle and be praised for being 'cool and edgy," Bustle's Mia Mercado wrote. 

 

discrimination

Practice of treating similarly situated individuals differently because of race, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, or national origin.

 

diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion" is used in corporate spaces to encompass efforts by business leaders to make their spaces more diverse, fair, and inclusive. But what does that mean?

 

Diversity initiatives aim to increase the number of people from marginalized backgrounds in places where they are underrepresented — for example, on a company's board.

 

Equity efforts are those that seek "to promote justice, impartiality and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems."

 

Equity is different from equality. Equity achieves fairness by treating people differently based on need, while equality achieves fairness by treating everyone the same, regardless of need. 

 

Inclusion is an organizational effort "in which different groups or individuals having different backgrounds are culturally and socially accepted and welcomed, and equally treated."

 

They added: "Inclusion is a sense of belonging. Inclusive cultures make people feel respected and valued for who they are as an individual or group."

 

dreamers

Children of undocumented parents who have spent most of their lives in the United States but are not U.S. citizens and seek to remain here legally, for example, to enroll in college.

 

driving while black

Term for police practice of singling out non-white drivers for special attention, such as by pulling them over and searching for drugs or contraband, often pulling drivers over under false and concocted pretenses.

 

emotional tax

"Emotional tax" refers to the unseen mental work that people from marginalized backgrounds have to do every day to feel included, respected, and safe.

The research firm Catalyst defines it as "the combination of being on guard to protect against bias, feeling different at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity, and the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work."

 

erasure

Practice of collective indifference towards the processes of overall eradication to the identity, history, stories, and culture of a group, rendering them invisible.

 

heteronormativity

Heteronormativity is the belief or assumption that all people are heterosexual, or that heterosexuality is the "normal" state of being.

"A heteronormative society operates on the assumption that heterosexuality and specific gender features are the human 'default,'" according to The Queer Dictionary. "These assumptions can be hurtful because they are stigmatizing and marginalizing, making people who are LGBT+ feel like they are perceived as deviant or unnatural."

 

institutional/systemic racism

Institutional racism refers specifically to the ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes and opportunities for different groups based on racial discrimination.

 

internment

Forced confinement of West Coast Japanese Americans in relocation camps during World War II.

 

intersectionality

Catalyst defines "intersectionality" as "the intertwining of social identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity, which can result in unique experiences, opportunities, challenges and barriers."

 

jim crow laws

Anti-loitering laws, poll taxes, sundown provisions, racial segregation, and other measures enacted in order to maintain white superiority even after slavery came to an end.  Meant to remove political and economic gains made by African-descended Americans during the Reconstruction period.

 

microaggression

Microaggressions are indirect expressions of racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, or another form of prejudice. They can be in seemingly innocuous comments from people who might be well-intentioned. But they make another person feel different, violated, or unsafe.

 

misgendering

Misgendering, according to Merriam-Webster, is when someone incorrectly identifies a person, such as a transgender person, by using the wrong label (such as "Mr." or "Ms.") or pronoun (such as "she," "he," or "they"). It often makes a person feel invalidated as a human being.

 

In a 2018 article for The Aragon Outlook, the student newspaper of Aragon High School in San Mateo, California, one student explained the personal effect of being misgendered.

"I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's just a deep pain [to be misgendered]," the student told the newspaper. "It sort of destroys my faith in humanity to a certain point and makes me just a little more afraid of leaving the house the next day."

 

neurodiversity

Neurodiversity, as explained by the UK nonprofit Autism Awareness Centre, is "the concept that humans don't come in a one-size-fits-all neurologically 'normal' package."

It "recognizes that all variations of human neurological function need to be respected as just another way of being, and that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal/natural variations in the human genome."

 

nonbinary

The Human Rights Campaign defines "nonbinary" as "an adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman."

 

"Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories," the definition says. "While many also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people do."

The gender binary — the belief that people can be only male or female —

oppresses people who fall elsewhere on the gender spectrum.

-phobic (e.g., transphobic, homophobic)

To be transphobic is to have a "fear and hatred of, or discomfort with, transgender people," according to the Human Rights Campaign. Similarly, to be homophobic is to have a fear of, hatred of, or discomfort with people who are attracted to members of the same sex.

 

race

A socially constructed social science framework that refutes Eurocentric-biological racial philosophy by concentrating individual’s, people’s, and community’s similar or exact ethnic and cultural foundations, which operate through unstable and perpetually altering social sequences.

 

racism

Any program or practice of discrimination, segregation, persecution, or mistreatment based on membership in a race or ethnic group. It is important to note that racism, as it has been enacted in “modern” society requires the social, political, ideological, and economic power of the dominant race.

 

reparations

The word "reparations" refers to payment for harm or damage, according to the Cambridge Dictionary. In the US, it refers to payments for harm and damage done to Black Americans who have endured decades of slavery, Jim Crow laws, racial violence, racist education and housing laws, and prejudice. The idea was popularized in recent years by the best-selling author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who argued his case in front of Congress in 2019. 

 

redlining

Policy by insurance companies, banks, and mortgage lenders not to do business with home buyers or owners in certain areas with heavy minority population.

 

trail of tears

Route used for forced removal of certain Native American nations (North American Indigenous) from the southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River.

 

unconscious bias/implicit bias

There's explicit bias, or bias we're aware of, and then there's implicit bias, or prejudicial beliefs we don't even know we have.

The University of California San Francisco's Office of Diversity and Outreach offers a comprehensive explanation on its website: "Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness ... Unconscious bias is far more prevalent than conscious prejudice and often incompatible with one's conscious values."

 

white fragility

Robin DiAngelo, a researcher and author of the best-selling book "White Fragility," explains the phenomenon as "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves," including "the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation."

An example of this could be a Black person pointing out a white person's problematic or racist behavior and the white person immediately jumping to defend themselves, making excuses and crying instead of listening and accepting what the other person is saying.

 

white privilege

White privilege is the vast set of advantages and benefits that people have solely because they are white or pass as white in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.

Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it. 

Examples include being able to walk around in a department store without being followed by a store clerk who suspects you of shoplifting or being able to drive around a neighborhood without fearing that someone will call the police on you.

 

white supremacy 

A power system structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as White, whether consciously or subconsciously determined; and who feel superior to those of other racial/ethnic identities.