Discrimination:

The denial of justice and fair treatment by both individuals and institutions in many areas, including employment, education, housing, banking and political rights. Discrimination is an action that can follow prejudicial thinking.

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Erasure:

The act of denying or refusing to acknowledge that people’s race and people’s lived experience in America because of their race differs. This is reflected in statements like, “I don’t see race,” I’m colorblind,” We are all equal,” and “But we’re all just one human race.”

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Implicit Bias:

The unconscious attitudes, stereotypes, and the unintentional actions (positive or negative) towards members of a group merely because of their membership in that group. Those associations develop over the course of a lifetime through exposure to direct and indirect messages. When people are acting out of their implicit bias, they are not even aware that their actions are biased. In fact, those biases may be in direct conflict with a person’s explicit beliefs and values.

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Microaggressions:

The result of implicit bias wherein a statement, action, or incident is indirectly or subtly (often unconsciously) reflective of prejudice. An example would be a person clutching their bag as they walk by a black man.

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Prejudice:

Prejudging or decision about a person or group of people without sufficient knowledge. Prejudicial thinking is frequently based on stereotypes.

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Racism:

Power + Prejudice = Racism. Racism describes the result of prejudicial attitudes being combined with the power to dominate and control the systems and institutions capable of carrying out discriminatory practices. In other words, racism results from access to the power to enforce prejudices so as to advantage one racial group.

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Stereotype:

An oversimplified generalization about a person or group of people without regard for individual differences. Even seemingly positive stereotypes that link to a person or group to a specific trait can have negative consequences.

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Systemic Racism:

Policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.

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White Fragility:

The defensiveness and avoidance that arise for white people when facing even a minimal amount of racial stress. The feelings can be so uncomfortable that white people distance themselves from engaging or actively shut down conversations about race. It may surface as the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as augmentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.

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White Privilege:

The term for the way people and social institutions grant social privileges that benefit white people beyond what is commonly experienced by people of color under the social, political, or economic circumstances. White privilege is not something that white people necessarily do, create, or enjoy on purpose. It refers more to the phenomenon that social systems award preference based on the presumptions of white as norm.

 

Definitions assembled are adapted from the work of the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Robin DiAngelo, and “White Privilege: Let’s Talk.”