Justice, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity

Terms and Definitions

Don't ever diminish the power of words. Words move hearts and hearts move limbs." ~Hamza Yusuf

Terms

Nine Types of Racial Discrimination Terms as defined by Dr. Barry S. McCary, Ed.D Professor at WIU School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration, Executive Director of NCJTRC.

  • Undermining: Challenging and Undoing progress toward equity attainment among persons who have been socially, economically or culturally marginalized.
  • Constricting: Minimizing equitable access to opportunity structures offered by the larger society-education occupation and income.
  • Dissimulating: Noticing information consistent with racist stereotypes and neglecting information inconsistent with racist stereotypes.
  • Dodging: Evading, shunning, moving away from, averting one’s eyes, ‘negative hallucinating’ (not seeing who obviously is in plain view).
  • Detaching: Refusing to accept even nominal responsibility for the condition of persons who are socially, economically, or culturally marginalized.
  • Deceiving: Lying, duplicity and dishonesty are the big three here – promises made but are not kept.
  • Denigrating: Besmirching the personhood of those socially, economically or culturally marginalized.
  • Demonizing: Besmirching the humanity of those socially, economically or culturally marginalized.
  • Destroying: Using physical or symbolic dehumanizing methods to inflict mental or physical injuring to persons who are socially, economically, or culturally marginalized.

Definitions

Below are some terms and definitions that may help you when you are speaking with different generations of people.

  • Ally: Someone who supports a group other than one’s own (in terms of multiple identities such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.). An ally acknowledges oppression and actively commits to reducing their own complicity, investing in strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression.
  • Bias: A form of prejudice that results from our need to quickly classify individuals into categories.
  • Diversity: Socially, it refers to the wide range of identities. It broadly includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, etc. It also involves different ideas, perspectives and values.
  • Discrimination: The unequal treatment of members of various groups, based on conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favors one group over others on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, language, age, national identity, religion and other categories.
  • Equity: The fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that prevent the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is necessary to provide equal opportunities to all groups.
  • Gender Identity: Distinct from the term “sexual orientation,” refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else. Since gender identity is internal, one’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others.
  • Gender Non-conforming: An individual whose gender expression is different from societal expectations related to gender.
  • Harassment: The use of comments or actions that can be perceived as offensive, embarrassing, humiliating, demeaning and unwelcome.
  • Implicit Bias: Negative associations expressed automatically that people unknowingly hold and that that affect our understanding, actions and decisions; also known as unconscious or hidden bias.
  • Inclusion: The act of creating an environment in which any individual or group will be welcomed, respected, supported and valued as a fully participating member. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces and respects differences.
  • Institutional 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.
  • Intersectionality: A social construct that recognizes the fluid diversity of identities that a person can hold such as gender, race, class, religion, professional status, marital status, socioeconomic status, etc.
  • “Isms”: A way of describing any attitude, action or institutional structure that oppresses a person or group because of their target group. For example, race (racism), gender (sexism), economic status (classism), older age (ageism), religion (e.g., anti-Semitism), sexual orientation (heterosexism), language/immigrant status (xenophobism), etc.
  • LGBTQIA: An inclusive term for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual.
  • Multicultural Competency: A process of embracing diversity and learning about people from other cultural backgrounds. The key element to becoming more culturally competent is respect for the ways that others live in and organize the world and an openness to learn from them.
  • Prejudice: A preconceived judgement or preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment and can be rooted in stereotypes, that denies the right of individual members of certain groups to be recognized.
  • Privilege: Exclusive access or access to material and immaterial resources based on the membership to a dominant social group.
  • Queer: An umbrella term that can refer to anyone who transgresses society’s view of gender or sexuality. The definitional indeterminacy of the word Queer, its elasticity, is one of its characteristics: “A zone of possibilities.”
  • Race: A social construct that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly race), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification, and the social, economic and political needs of a society at a given period of time
  • Safe Space: Refers to an environment in which everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves and participating fully, without fear of attack, ridicule or denial of experience.
  • Social Justice: Social justice constitutes a form of activism, based on principles of equity and inclusion that encompasses a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Social justice involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others.
  • Stereotype: A form of generalization rooted in blanket beliefs and false assumptions, a product of processes of categorization that can result in a prejudiced attitude, critical judgment and intentional or unintentional discrimination. Stereotypes are typically negative, based on little information and does not recognize individualism and personal agency.
  • Tokenism: Performative presence without meaningful participation. For example, a superficial invitation for the participation of members of a certain socially oppressed group, who are expected to speak for the whole group without giving this person a real opportunity to speak for her/himself.

Sources

The terms contained in this glossary have been reproduced from the following resources:

  1. Anti-Violence Project. Glossary . University of Victoria.
  2. Colors of Resistance. Definitions for the Revolution .
  3. Cram, R. H. (2002). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook.
  4. Equity and Inclusion. Glossary . UC Davis.
  5. Potapchuk, M., Leiderman, S., et al. (2009). Glossary . Center for Assessment and Policy Development.
  6. Center for Diversity & Inclusion. Glossary of Bias Terms . Washington University in St. Louis.
  7. Ontario Human Rights Commission. Glossary of human rights terms .