Antiracism Resources

Accountability – the ways in which individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions, and acknowledge the values and groups to which they are responsible.

To be accountable, one must be visible, with a transparent agenda and process.. Accountability demands commitment. Accountability also requires some sense of urgency and becoming a true stakeholder in the outcome. Accountability can be externally imposed (legal or organizational requirements), or internally applied (moral, relational, faith-based, or recognized as some combination of the two) on a continuum from the institutional and organizational level to the individual level. From a relational point of view, accountability is not always doing it right. Sometimes it’s really about what happens after it’s done wrong.

SOURCE: Accountability and White Anti-Racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work, Bonnie Berman Cushing with Lila Cabbil, Margery Freeman, Jeff Hitchcock, and Kimberly Richards (2010).

Anti-Semitism
The non-legally-binding working definition of anti-semitism as adopted by the Plenary in Bucharest on May 26, 2016, and used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

To learn more about anti-Semitism, click on the link below. SOURCE: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/

Bigotry – Intolerant prejudice that glorifies one’s own group and denigrates members of other groups.

SOURCE: National Conference for Community and Justice, St. Louis Region. Unpublished handout used in the Dismantling Racism Institute program.

BIPOC – refers to “Black and/or Indigenous People of Color.” While “POC” or People of Color is often used as well, BIPOC explicitly leads with Black and Indigenous identities, which helps to counter anti-Black racism and invisibilization of Native communities.

SOURCE: Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity: A Toolbox for Advancing Racial Equity for Arts and Cultural Organizations, Nayantara Sen & Terry Keleher, Race Forward (2021).

Black Liberation Theology was founded by the Rev. James Cone. It began on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism. The movement has its roots in 1960s civil-rights activism and draws much of its inspiration from the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm A. It is characterized “mainly a theology that sees God as concerned with the poor and the weak.”

According to Cone, at the core of black liberation theology is an effort — in a white-dominated society, in which black has been defined as evil — to make the gospel relevant to the life and struggles of American blacks, and to help black people learn to love themselves. It’s an attempt, he says “to teach people how to be both unapologetically black and Christian at the same time.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89236116

Christian nationalism is an academic term that encompasses different degrees of intensity. It includes less harmful, white evangelicals who believe politicians and courts should eliminate barriers separating church and state—perhaps by allowing for prayer in schools or other public spaces—as well as those with a “dominionist” perspective, who feel  compelled to bring the nation’s institutions under control of people who will enforce “God’s law.”  The term also includes violent extremists willing to tear down democratic processes to bring about their vision of a white Christian nation. 

Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/christian-nationalist-identity-marjorie-taylor-greene.html

Cisgender: A term (pronounced sis-gender) used to refer to an individual whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth. The prefix cis- comes from the Latin word for “on the same side as.” People who are both cisgender and heterosexual are sometimes referred to as “cishet” (pronounced sis-het) individuals. The term cisgender is not a slur. People who are not trans should avoid calling themselves “normal” and instead refer to themselves as cisgender or cis.

Cisnormativity: The assumption that everyone is cisgender and that being cisgender is superior to all other genders. This includes the often implicitly held idea that being cisgender is the norm and that other genders are “different” or “abnormal.”

Cissexism: Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination on the basis of sex, specifically towards transgender and gender-expansive people

SOURCE: PFLAG National Glossary of Terms, June 2022 (accessed September 2022).

Class — Classism is the systematic oppression of subordinated class groups, held in place by attitudes that rank people according to economic status, family lineage, job status, level of education, and other divisions. One’s race can be a major determinant of one’s social or economic class. The variables of race and class, though closely connected, each need distinct attention.

SOURCE: https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/racial-justice-education-key-terms-and

Colonization can be defined as some form of invasion, dispossession and subjugation of a people. The invasion need not be military; it can begin—or continue—as geographical intrusion in the form of agricultural, urban or industrial encroachments. The result of such incursion is the dispossession of vast amounts of lands from the original inhabitants. This is often legalized after the fact. The long-term result of such massive dispossession is institutionalized inequality. The colonizer/colonized relationship is by nature an unequal one that benefits the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.

Ongoing and legacy colonialism impact power relations in most of the world today. For example, white supremacy as a philosophy was developed largely to justify European colonial exploitation of the Global South (including enslaving African peoples, extracting resources from much of Asia and Latin America, and enshrining cultural norms of whiteness as desirable both in colonizing and colonizer nations).

SOURCE: Emma LaRocque, PhD, “Colonization and Racism,” (Aboriginal Perspectives). Also see Racism and Colonialism, edited by Robert Ross (1982), and Andrea Smith, “Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy” (Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century, 2012).

Colorblind – A term used to describe the act or practice of disregarding or ignoring racial characteristics, or being uninfluenced by racial prejudice. The concept of colorblindness is often promoted by those who dismiss the importance of race in order to proclaim the end of racism. It presents challenges when discussing diversity, which requires being racially aware, and equity that is focused on fairness for people of all races.

To learn more about this concept, click on this link: https://fitchburgstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=1046516&p=7616506

SOURCE: https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/racial-justice-education-key-terms-and

The Combahee River Collective was an organization formed in 1974 by some of the strongest leaders of the Black feminist movement. Dismayed by the feminist movement, which they believed was dominated by middle-class white women, and the black-nationalist organizations which were overwhelmingly dominated by the male viewpoint, they strove to formulate their own politics and strategies in response to their experiences as Black women. The Collective is best known for its “Combahee River Collective Statement” notable for its introduction of the term “identity politics.”

“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

SOURCE: newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/until-black-women-are-free-none-of-us-will-be-free; teachingamericanhistory.org/document/combahee-river-collective-statement. For more informative essays on the history of African America, read “Four Hundred Souls” edited byX. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain.
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Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been in the news lately and may be hard to understand just what it is. Developed by scholars in the 1970’s and 80’s in response to their concern about a lack of racial progress following the civil rights movements of the 60’s. CRT is a way of thinking about American history through the lens of racism. Central tenets of CRT are that race is a socially constructed concept and that racism is systemic in this nation’s institutions and they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society. Click here for more on understanding CRT.

Cultural Misappropriation – is not the neutrality of cultural exchange, appreciation, and appropriation because of the instance of colonialism and capitalism; Rather, Cultural Misappropriation occurs when a cultural fixture of a marginalized culture/community is copied, mimicked, or recreated by the dominant culture against the will of the original community and, above all else, commodified. One can understand the use of “misappropriation” as a distinguishing tool because it assumes that there are 1) instances of neutral appropriation, 2) the specifically referenced instance is non-neutral and problematic, even if benevolent in intention, 3) some act of theft or dishonest attribution has taken place, and 4) moral judgement of the act of appropriation is subjective to the specific culture from which is being engaged.

SOURCE: Devyn Springer, “Resources on What ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Is and Isn’t”.

Cultural racism refers to representations, messages and stories conveying the idea that behaviors and values associated with white people or “whiteness” are automatically “better” or more “normal” than those associated with other racially defined groups. Cultural racism shows up in advertising, movies, history books, definitions of patriotism, and in policies and laws. Cultural racism is also a powerful force in maintaining systems of internalized supremacy and internalized racism. It does that by influencing collective beliefs about what constitutes appropriate behavior, what is seen as beautiful, and the value placed on various forms of expression. All of these cultural norms and values in the U.S. have explicitly or implicitly racialized ideals and assumptions (for example, what “nude” means as a color, which facial features and body types are considered beautiful, which child-rearing practices are considered appropriate.)

SOURCE: RacialEquityTools.org

Cultural representations refer to popular stereotypes, images, frames and narratives that are socialized and reinforced by media, language and other forms of mass communication and “common sense.” Cultural representations can be positive or negative, but from the perspective of the dismantling structural racism analysis, too often cultural representations depict people of color in ways that are dehumanizing, perpetuate inaccurate stereotypes, and have the overall effect of allowing unfair treatment within the society as a whole to seem fair, or ‘natural.’
Source: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/structural-racism-definition/

Diwali, or Dipawali, one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of the light half of the lunar month Karttika, is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. To learn more about the celebration of Diwali and ways you can honor this day, click on the link below.

SOURCE: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/pages/article/diwali; https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diwali-Hindu-festival

Diversity – The Bible insistently reveals that God loves diversity and justice. This is seen in the wide variety of creation in which God delights. It is heard in the words of the prophets, who reject oppression and commend justice as true worship. It is embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who resists the power of empire and values all persons, regardless of status, as children of God.
Source: PC (USA) Facing Racism – Churchwide Antiracism Policy – Vision Statement.

Diversity includes all the ways in which people differ, and it encompasses all the different characteristics that make one individual or group different from another. It is all-inclusive and recognizes everyone and every group as part of the diversity that should be valued. A broad definition includes not only race, ethnicity, and gender—the groups that most often come to mind when the term “diversity” is used—but also age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, and physical appearance. It also involves different ideas, perspectives, and values.
Source: Racial Equity Tools Glossary.

Equality – ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents, and believing that no one should have poorer life chances because of where, what or whom they were born, what they believe, or whether they have a disability. Equality recognizes that historically, certain groups of people with particular characteristics (race, disability, sex and sexuality) have experienced discrimination.
Source: Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Ethnicity – a social construct that 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 ancestral 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).

SOURCE: Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook, edited by Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, Routledge, 1997.

Food Apartheid – First coined by Karen Washington, food sovereignty leader, to illuminate the root causes behind “food desert,” food apartheid is a system of segregation that divides those with access to an abundance of nutritious food and those who have been denied that access due to systemic injustice. 

Source: https://regeneration.org/nexus/food-apartheid 

An area where people have very limited access to healthy, affordable food. Somebody living in a food desert faces daily obstacles preventing them from going to a grocery store and buying fresh, nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables.  The USDAA identifies two types of food deserts:

1. Low income, urban areas where a significant number of people lives farther than a mile away from the nearest grocery store
2. Low income, rural areas where people live more than 10 miles away from the nearest grocery store

Source: https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert

Food insecurity is defined as a “a lack of consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active life.”  Food insecurity is a much broader, more complex topic than food deserts alone.

Source: https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert

The Food Justice Movement works to ensure universal access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally-appropriate food for all, while advocating for the well-being and safety of those involved in the food production process. The movement aims to address disparities in food access, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities, by examining the structural roots of our food system. Food Justice addresses questions of land ownership, agricultural practices, distribution of technology and resources, workers’ rights, and the historical injustices communities of color have faced. Food Justice is closely intertwined with environmental justice and sustainability movements.

Source: https://www.bu.edu/csc/edref-2/what-is-food-justice/

Unlike in food deserts, people in food swamps do have access to healthy options like fruits and vegetables. The problem is that they are flooded with less nutritious alternatives like fast food restaurants and convenience stores that sell junk food and soft drinks.

Source: https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert

The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from the rural South to the urban North between 1916 and 1970. It occurred in two waves, before and after the Great Depression. At the beginning of the 20th century, 90 percent of black Americans lived in the South. By 1970, nearly half of all African Americans lived in Northern cities. Many moved because of poor economic conditions in the South and ongoing racial oppression from Jim Crow laws. Reports from the North of good wages and better living conditions also motivated many to move there.

The greater economic and educational opportunities in the North led to an explosion of artistic expression in music and literature, seen in the Harlem Renaissance and the sound of blues music. The Great Migration was a factor in desegregating sports, and in leading to the Civil Rights movement.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Migration

An excellent resource on this time in our history is “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed into law and signed by President Obama on October 28, 2009. This Act expanded the federal hate crime law, intended to protect against hate crimes committed on the basis of a person’s characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality, to also include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Emmett Till Antilynching Act – The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was passed into law, and signed by President Biden on March 29, 2022. This Act amends the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act” and defines lynching as any conspired bias-motivated offense that results in death or serious bodily injury.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till_Antilynching_Act and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_and_James_Byrd_Jr._Hate_Crimes_Prevention_Act

National Hispanic Heritage Month began as “Hispanic Week” in 1968 and expanded to a month, running from September 15 to October 15, in 1989. September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the commemoration because it is the anniversary of the Cry of Dolores, which marked the start of the Mexican War of Independence and resulted in independence in 1821 for what is now Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is a time for recognizing the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture, and achievements in the United States. During the month, the U.S. Army also commemorates the longstanding and remarkable contributions that Hispanics have made in building and defending the nation.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Hispanic_Heritage_Month_(United_States)

Inclusion – the act of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued to fully participate. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces differences and offers respect in words and actions for all people. Source: Building Bridges; UC Berkeley Initiative for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October to honor the cultures and histories of the Native American people. The day is centered around reflecting on their tribal roots and the tragic stories that hurt but strengthened their communities.

To learn more about the history of Indigenous People’s Day and ways you can celebrate and honor this day, click on the link below.

SOURCE: https://nationaltoday.com/indigenous-peoples-day/

Individual Racism includes the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. This can be deliberately done, or a person may act to perpetuate or support racism without knowing that they are doing so. For example, telling a racist joke, avoiding persons of color whom you do not know personally (like crossing the street to avoid such an encounter), believing in the inherent superiority of whites over other groups, or simply accepting things as they are and that they cannot be changed.
SOURCE: Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building by Maggie Potapchuk, Sally Leiderman, Donna Bivens, and Barbara Major (2005).

Internalized Racism – 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.

SOURCE and for more information: Donna Bivens, Internalized Racism: A Definition (Women’s Theological Center, 1995).

Interpersonal Racism – Interpersonal racism occurs between individuals as the name implies. It is when we bring our private beliefs into our interactions with others as in public expressions of racial prejudice, hate, bias, and bigotry between individuals. SOURCE: Chronic Disparity: Strong and Pervasive Evidence of Racial Inequalities by Keith Lawrence and Terry Keleher (2004).

Intersectionality means exposing [one’s] multiple identities to help clarify the ways in which a person can simultaneously experience privilege and oppression. For example, a Black woman in America does not experience gender inequalities in exactly the same way as a white woman, nor racial oppression identical to that experienced by a Black man. Each race and gender intersection produces a qualitatively distinct life.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw says that intersectionality is simply a prism to see the interactive effects of various forms of discrimination and disempowerment. It looks at the way that racism, many times, interacts with patriarchy, heterosexism, classism, xenophobia and sees that the overlapping vulnerabilities created by these systems actually create specific kinds of challenges.

SOURCE:
1. Intergroup Resources, “Intersectionality” (2012).
2. Otamere Guobadia, “Kimberlé Crenshaw and Lady Phyll Talk Intersectionality, Solidarity, and Self-Care” (2018).

Institutional Racism – The ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. The institutional policies may never mention any racial group, but their effect is to create advantages for whites and oppression and disadvantage for people from groups classified as people of color.

Examples:
• Government policies that explicitly restricted the ability of people to get loans to buy or improve their homes in neighborhoods with high concentrations of African Americans (also known as “red-lining”).
• City sanitation department policies that concentrate trash transfer stations and other environmental hazards disproportionately in communities of color.

SOURCE and for more information: Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building by Maggie Potapchuk, Sally Leiderman, Donna Bivens, and Barbara Major (2005).

Implicit biases, also known as unconscious or hidden bias, are negative associations that people unknowingly hold. They are expressed automatically, without conscious awareness. Many studies have indicated that implicit biases affect individuals’ attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though individuals may not even be aware that those biases exist within themselves. Notably, implicit biases have been shown to trump individuals’ stated commitments to equality and fairness, thereby producing behavior that diverges from the explicit attitudes that many people profess.

SOURCE: Cheryl Staats, State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2013, Kirwan Institute, The Ohio State University.

Reparation – States have a legal duty to acknowledge and address widespread or systematic human rights violations, in cases where the state caused the violations or did not seriously try to prevent them. Reparations initiatives seek to address the harms caused by these violations. They can take the form of compensating for the losses suffered, which helps overcome some of the consequences of abuse. They can also be future oriented—providing rehabilitation and a better life to victims—and help to change the underlying causes of abuse. Reparations publicly affirm that victims are rights-holders entitled to redress.

SOURCE: International Center for Transitional Justice.

Xenophobia is any attitude, behavior, practice, or policy that explicitly or implicitly reflects the belief that immigrants are inferior to the dominant group of people. Xenophobia is reflected in interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels oppression and is a function of White supremacy.

SOURCE: Lee Cokorinos, “The Racist Roots of the Anti-Immigration Movement,” The Black Agenda Report (2007).