The glossary is not presented as a definitive, authoritative
document, but rather as a meaningful and provocative starting
point for your group to use and also to modify based on experiences
and discussion.
| TERM |
DEFINITION |
SOURCE |
| Ally |
A person from a different racial, gender,
religious, sexual orientation etc. group that acknowledges
the oppression and who will commit to working on his/her own
part that may contribute to that oppression, continue to increase
knowledge and awareness, and who will commit to supporting
people who are oppressed through actions and taking stands. |
National Conference for Community and
Justice – St. Louis Region – unpublished handout
used in the Dismantling Racism Institute Program |
Bigotry |
Intolerant prejudice which glorifies one’s own group,
but, denigrates members of other groups. |
National Conference for Community and Justice – St.
Louis Region – unpublished handout used in the Dismantling
Racism Institute program. |
| Collusion |
When people act to perpetuate oppression
or prevent others from working to eliminate oppression.Example:
Able-bodied people who object to strategies for making buildings
accessible because of the expense. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Cultural competence |
The integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals
and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices,
and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase
the quality of services; thereby producing better outcomes. |
Mark A. King, Anthony Sims, and David Osher, “How
is Cultural Competence Integrated in Education?” <<Source
web site>> |
| Cultural Pluralism |
Recognition of the contribution of each
group to the common civilization. It encourages the maintenance
and development of different life styles, languages and convictions.
It is a commitment to deal cooperatively with common concerns.
It strives to create the conditions of harmony and respect
within a culturally diverse society. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project
Change Anti-Racism Initiative. A Community Builder’s
Tool Kit. |
| Culture |
A social system of meaning and custom that is developed
by a group of people to assure its adaptation and survival.
These groups are distinguished by a set of unspoken rules
that shape values, beliefs, habits, patterns of thinking,
behaviors and styles of communication. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. |
| Cultural Racism |
Those aspects of society that overtly
and covertly attribute value and normality to white people
and whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label People of
Color as “other,” different, less than, or render
them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white
skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having future time orientation,
emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective
ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying
only Whites as the great writers or composers. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Denial |
Refusal to acknowledge the societal privileges (see the
term “privilege”) that are granted or denied based
on an individual’s ethnicity or other grouping. Those
who are in a stage of denial tend to believe, “People
are people. We are all alike regardless of the color of our
skin.” In this way, the existence of a hierarchical
system or privileges based on ethnicity or race can be ignored. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. |
| Discrimination |
The unequal treatment of members of various
groups based on race, gender, social class, sexual orientation,
physical ability, religion and other categories. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project
Change Anti-Racism Initiative. A Community Builder’s
Tool Kit. |
| Diversity |
The wide range of national, ethnic, racial and other backgrounds
of U.S. citizens and immigrants as social groupings, co-existing
in American culture. The term is often used to include aspects
of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class and
much more. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. |
| Empowerment |
When target group members refuse to accept
the dominant ideology and their subordinate status and take
actions to redistribute social power more equitably. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Ethnicity |
A social construct which divides people into smaller social
groups based on characteristics such as shared sense of group
membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political
and economic interests, history and ancestoral geographical
base. Examples of different ethnic groups are: Cape Verdean,
Haitian, African American (Black); Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese
(Asian); Cherokee, Mohawk, Navaho (Native American); Cuban,
Mexican, Puerto Rican (Latino); Polish, Irish, and Swedish
(White). |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, editors.
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook. New
York: Routledge. |
| Individual Racism |
The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of
individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual
racism can occur at both an unconscious level, and can be
both active and passive. Examples include telling a racist
joke, using a racial epithet, or believing in the inherent
superiority of Whites. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Institutional Racism |
The network of institutional structures, policies and practices
that create advantages and benefits for Whites, and discrimination,
oppression, and disadvantages for people from targeted racial
groups. The advantages created for whites are often invisible
to them, or are considered “rights” available
to everyone as opposed to “privileges” awarded
to only some individuals and groups.Examples of institutional
racism include policies and practices that: arbitrarily govern
a person’s credit-worthiness; determine what information,
positive or negative, is presented in the media about individuals
involved in newsworthy events; or place undue value on selective
educational experiences or qualifications in establishing
promotion criteria in jobs and schools. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, editors.
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook.
New York: Routledge.
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. Claremont,
CA: Claremont Graduate University, 2001. (Source for Examples) |
| Internalized Racism |
Internalized racism is the situation
that occurs in a racist system when a racial group oppressed
by racism supports the supremacy and dominance of the dominating
group by maintaining or participating in the set of attitudes,
behaviors, social structures and ideologies that undergird
the dominating group's power. It involves four essential
and interconnected elements:
Decision-making - Due to racism, people of color do not
have the ultimate decision-making power over the decisions
that control our lives and resources. As a result, on a
personal level, we may think white people know more about
what needs to be done for us than we do. On an interpersonal
level, we may not support each other's authority and power
– especially if it is in opposition to the dominating
racial group. Structurally, there is a system in place that
rewards people of color who support white supremacy and
power and coerces or punishes those who do not.
Resources - Resources, broadly defined (e.g. money, time,
etc), are unequally in the hands and under the control of
white people. Internalized racism is the system in place
that makes it difficult for people of color to get access
to resources for our own communities and to control the
resources of our community. We learn to believe that serving
and using resources for ourselves and our particular community
is not serving “everybody.”
Standards - With internalized racism, the standards for
what is appropriate or "normal" that people of
color accept are white people's or Eurocentric standards.
We have difficulty naming, communicating and living up to
our deepest standards and values, and holding ourselves
and each other accountable to them.
Naming the problem - There is a system in place that misnames
the problem of racism as a problem of or caused by people
of color and blames the disease - emotional, economic, political,
etc. - on people of color. With internalized racism, people
of color might, for example, believe we are more violent
than white people and not consider state-sanctioned political
violence or the hidden or privatized violence of white people
and the systems they put in place and support. |
Donna Bivens, “Internalized Racism:
A Definition,” Women’s Theological Center. |
| “ISMS” |
A way of describing any attitude, action or institutional
structure that subordinates (oppresses) a person or group
because of their target group, color (racism), gender (sexism),
economic status (classism), older age (ageism), religion (e.g.
Anti-Semitism), sexual orientation (heterosexism), language/immigrant
status (xenophobism), etc. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. Claremont,
CA: Claremont Graduate University. |
| Oppression |
The systemic and pervasive nature
of social inequality woven throughout social institutions
as well as embedded within individual consciousness. Oppression
fuses institutional and systemic discrimination, personal
bias, bigotry, and social prejudice in a complex web of
relationships and structures that saturate most aspects
of life in our society.·
- Oppression denotes structural and material constraints
that significantly shape a person’s life chances
and sense of possibility.
- Oppression also signifies a hierarchial relationship
in which dominant or privilege groups benefit, often in
unconscious ways, from the disempowerment of subordinated
or targeted groups.
- Oppression resides not only in external social institutions
and norms but also within the human psyche as well.
Eradicating oppression ultimately requires struggle against
all its forms, and that building coalitions among diverse
people offers the most promising strategies for challenging
oppression systematically. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Prejudice |
A pre-judgment or unjustifiable, and usually negative, attitude
of one type of individual or groups toward another group and
its members. Such negative attitudes are typically based on
unsupported generalizations (or stereotypes) that deny the
right of individual members of certain groups to be recognized
and treated as individuals with individual characteristics. |
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. Claremont,
CA: Claremont Graduate University. |
| Privilege |
A right that only some people have access
or availability to because of their social group memberships
(dominants). Because hierarchies of privilege exist, even
within the same group, people who are part of the group in
power (white/Caucasian people with respect to people of color,
men with respect to women, heterosexual with respect to homosexuals,
adults with respect to children, and rich people with respect
to poor people) often deny they have privilege even when
evidence of differential benefit is obvious. See right |
National Conference for Community and
Justice – St. Louis Region – unpublished handout
used in the Dismantling Racism Institute program.(Source for
1ST Part)Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change
Anti-Racism Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit.
Claremont, CA: Claremont Graduate University. (Source for
2ND Part) |
| Race |
A social construct that artificially divides people into
distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical
appearance (particularly color), ancestral heritage, cultural
affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification, and
the social, economic, and political needs of a society at
a given period of time. Racial categories subsume ethnic groups. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, editors.
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook. New
York: Routledge. |
| Racial and Ethnic Identity |
An individual’s awareness and experience
of being a member of a racial and ethnic group; the racial
and ethnic categories that an individual chooses to describe
him or herself based on such factors as biological heritage,
physical appearance, cultural affiliation, early socialization,
and personal experience. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Right |
A resource or position that everyone has equal access or
availability to regardless of their social group memberships. |
National Conference for Community and Justice – St.
Louis Region – unpublished handout used in the Dismantling
Racism Institute program. |
| Social Power |
Access to resources that enhance one’s
chances of getting what one needs or influencing others in
order to lead a safe, productive, fulfilling life. |
Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat
Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice:
A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. |
| Structural Racism |
A structural racism analytical framework identifies aspects
of our history and culture that have allowed the privilege
associated with ‘whiteness’ and the disadvantage
of ‘color’ to endure and adapt over time. It points
out the ways in which public policies and institutional practices
contribute to inequitable racial outcomes. It lays out assumptions
and stereotypes that are embedded in our culture that, in
effect, legitimize racial disparities, and it illuminates
the ways in which progress toward racial equity is undermined. |
Karen Fulbright-Anderson, Keith Lawrence, Stacey Sutton,
Gretchen Susi, and Anne Kubisch, Structural Racism and Youth
Development Issues, Challenges, and Implications. New York:
The Aspen Institute. |
| White Privilege |
Is the unquestioned and unearned set
of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed
on people solely because they are white. Generally white
people who experience such privilege do so without being
conscious of it.
Examples of privilege might be: “I can walk around
a department store without being followed.” “I
can come to meeting late and not have, my lateness attributed
to your race;” “being able to drive a car in
any neighborhood without being perceived as being in the
wrong place or looking for trouble;” “I can
turn on the television or look to the front page and see
people of my ethnic and racial background represented.”
“I can take a job without having co-workers suspect
that I got it because of my racial background.” I
can send my 16-year old out with his new driver’s
license and not having to give him a lesson how to respond
if police stop him.” |
Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege
and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences
Through Work in Women Studies.” |
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Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, editors. Teaching
for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge,
1997.
Karen Fulbright-Anderson, Keith Lawrence, Stacey Sutton, Gretchen
Susi, and Anne Kubisch, Structural Racism and Youth Development
Issues, Challenges, and Implications. New York: The Aspen Institute,
2004. page 1.
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/Programt1.asp?i=83&bid=0
Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism
Initiative. A Community Builder’s Tool Kit: 15 Tools for
Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities.
Claremont, CA: Claremont Graduate University, 2001. pages 32-33
http://www.projectchange.org/pubs.html
National Conference for Community and Justice – St. Louis
Region – unpublished handout used in the Dismantling Racism
Institute program. 1996.
http://www.nccjstl.org/
Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A
Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work
in Women Studies.”
http://www.wcwonline.org/title108.html
