Glossary

These definitions are from Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence:

Ableism -The discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability.

Ally – A member of a dominant group who works to dismantle oppression from which they benefit.

Anti-racism – The act of interrupting racism.

Anti-Semitism – A belief that Jewish people are inferior.

Ascription – Birth defines place in society.

Assimilation – Adopting the characteristics and values of the dominant group.

BIPOC- An acronym for Black, Indigenous, People of Color.

Bigotry – Intolerance to those who are different.

Border Crossing – Supports the rights of a person from outside a cultural community to act as a voice for that community and to appropriate knowledge without actual understanding of historical, political and ideological struggle. (Antonia Darder)

Capitalism – An economic system based on private ownership and control. Produces profits for individual rather than collective needs.

Colonization: The violent taking of land, wealth, labor of indigenous peoples through domination & conquest leading to their extermination & the Transatlantic slave trade which created a permanent underclass based on race and gender.

Colorism – Favoritism toward light-skinned people of color.

Cultural Appropriation – The taking of another group’s cultural knowledge, traditions or practices to use for self-benefit. Objectifies and commodifies while ignoring the group’s political struggles.

Cultural Racism – Cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed racial superiority of one group and the assumed racial inferiority of another group.

Difference – A spectrum of experience or characteristics that can be complementary or conflicting. Often involves inequality of status and power.

Discrimination – Denial of opportunities. Different treatment. Granting advantages to one group while denying opportunities to another.

• Individual Discrimination – perpetuated by an individual.

• Structural Discrimination – perpetuated by an institution through tradition or custom.

• Organizational Discrimination – perpetuated by individuals but reinforced by established rules, polices and practices.

Eurocentric – A perspective centered on a Western worldview that has become intrinsic to the American cultural identity.

Genocide – Any policy of extermination of a people through institutional acts of killing culture, identity, and the people themselves.

• Direct genocide - physical killing or slow death measures.

• Cultural genocide - destroys the institutions and identities of the group.

Heterosexism – A system of advantage based on sexual orientation.

Homophobia – Fear based on heterosexual values.

Honor Systems – Rank certain qualities above others. Benefits are conferred, not earned.

Hypo-descent a.k.a. “one-drop rule” – Any racial mixture constitutes racial impurity. Categorized as a non-white person and relegated to a subordinate group.

Inequality – Unequal power relationship.Privilege

• Temporary Inequality – Temporary power-over relationship. Socially defined superior and inferior groups. Superior group has the responsibility to “raise up” an inferior group and to eventually end the relationship of inequity.

• Permanent Inequality – Permanent power-over relationship. Superiors enforce inequity and do not help inferiors. No goal to end inequality.

Institutional Racism – A system of advantage based on race rooted in and reinforced by cultural, political, economic and educational foundations. Never accidental.

Internalized Oppression – Internalized belief of racial inferiority about one's own racial group.

Internalized Sexism – Internalized belief of gender inferiority based on gender.

Intersectionality – The intersection where multiple forms of oppression come together.

Intra-racism–Internalized racism played-out among different racial communities of color.

Jim Crow – The system of legalized racial segregation.

Legal Fiction - The act of inventing made-up law by policy-makers to achieve a political purpose. The political invention is given real legal meaning and enforcement through the passage of it into law.

Misogyny – A hatred of women.

Nativism– a policy of favoring native inhabitants over immigrants

Oppression – A relationship that exists between groups where dominance benefits at the expense of subordinates reinforced by a system of social inequity.

Patriarchy – A belief that men are superior to women. Culture is male dominated, centered, and identified.

Passing – An attempt by non-whites with light-skinned privilege to skirt the discrimination barriers imposed by law and custom by attempting to “pass” for white. Prejudice – A preconceived belief usually based on limited information.

Race – An ever evolving social, legal and political construct that has no basis in biological fact.

Racial Stereotypes – Preconceived notions based on assumptions of racial superiority and inferiority.

Racialization – The extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified concept, group or practice.

Racialized Privilege – The granting of privileges based on preferred racial identity.

Racism – A system of advantage based on race.

Reverse Racism – A disputed concept. Discrimination (a denial of opportunity) by subordinates against dominants.

Sexism – A system of advantage based on gender.

Social Power – Access to social, cultural, and economic resources and decision making.

System – Combines social power, institutional power (policies & practices), cultural messages, and individual actions.

White Privilege – An unacknowledged system of favoritism and advantage granted to white people as the beneficiaries of historical conquest. Benefits include preferential treatment, exemption from group oppression and immunity from perpetuating social inequality.

White Supremacy – A system of exploitation to maintain wealth, power and white privilege.

Whiteness – A racial identity created by upper-class colonialists to distinguish themselves from indentured servants and slaves. A guarantee against being enslaved.

@Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence