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Glossary of Terms

  • Bias

    Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. Unconscious or implicit bias refers to biases that we carry without awareness. 

  • Culture

    Sum total of ways of living, including1) values, 2) beliefs, 3) aesthetic standards, 4) linguistic expression, 5) patterns of thinking, 6) behavioral norms, and 7) styles of communication which a group of people has developed to assure its survival in a particular environment. We are socialized through “cultural conditioning” to adopt ways of thinking related to societal grouping.

  • Identity

    The feeling of being included in a group or culture. 

  • Interpersonal Racism

    Actions that perpetuate inequalities on the basis of race.  Such behaviors may be intentional or unintentional; unintentional acts may be racist in their consequence.

  • Institutional Racism

    Laws, customs, traditions and practices that systematically result in racial inequalities in a society.  This is the institutionalization of personal racism.

  • Internalized Racism/Oppression

    The internalization of conscious or unconscious attitudes regarding inferiority or differences by the victims of systematic oppression. The personal conscious or subconscious acceptance of the dominant society’s racist views, stereotypes and biases of one’s ethnic group. It gives rise to patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that result in discriminating, minimizing, criticizing, finding fault, invalidating, and hating oneself while simultaneously valuing the dominant culture.

  • Oppression

    The systematic mistreatment of the powerless by the powerful, resulting in the targeting of certain groups within the society for less of its benefits – involves a subtle devaluing or non-acceptance of the powerless group – may be economic, political, social, and /or psychological. Oppression also includes the belief of superiority or “righteousness” of the group in power.

  • Prejudice

    A negative attitude toward a person or group, based on pre-judgment and evaluation, often using one’s own or one’s group’s standards as the “right” and “only” way.

  • Privilege/Internalized Entitlement

    Through the lens of race, privilege is about the concrete benefits of access to resources and social rewards and the power to shape the norms and values of society that white people receive, unconsciously or consciously, by virtue of their skin color. There are unearned entitlements—things that all people should have—such as feeling safe in public spaces, free speech, the ability to work in a place where we feel we can do our best work, and being valued for what we can contribute. When unearned entitlement is restricted to certain groups, however, it becomes the form of privilege that Peggy McIntosh calls “unearned advantage.” Unearned advantage gives white people a competitive edge we are reluctant to even acknowledge, much less give up. The other type of privilege is conferred dominance, which is giving one group (white people) power over another: the unequal distribution of resources and rewards.

  • Racism

    The systematic oppression of people of color; occurs at the individual, internalized, interpersonal, institutional, and/or cultural levels; may be overt or covert, intentional or unintentional.

  • Structural Racism/Racialization

    The word “racism” is commonly understood to refer to instances in which one individual intentionally or unintentionally targets others for negative treatment because of their skin color or other group-based physical characteristics. This individualistic conceptualization is too limited. Racialized outcomes do not require racist actors. Structural racism/racialization refers to a system of social structures that produces cumulative, durable, race-based inequalities. It is also a method of analysis that is used to examine how historical legacies, individuals, structures, and institutions work interactively to distribute material and symbolic advantages and disadvantages along racial lines.

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