Allyship: From the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault: “The act of directly engaging in learning more information, unlearning harmful ideas, and being in support of a group you do not belong to." Someone who self-identifies as an ally can be viewed as being in solidarity.

 

Appropriation: Cultural appropriation occurs when someone of one group adopts aspects or practices of another group, especially if it is done so out of context (e.g., a white person using Native American headdress for a Halloween costume). It is particularly problematic when members of the dominant group take cultural elements from a historically marginalized group in order to profit from it. Cultural appropriation trivializes systemic and historical oppression while perpetuating negative stereotypes.

 

Assimilation: From Britannica: “The process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society.” While a minority group can assimilate into the dominant group culture, this does not mean acceptance by the dominant group. Assimilation may also be voluntary or involuntary and be accompanied by acculturation.

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BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, People of Color. This acronym specifically calls attention to the unique experiences of Black and Indigenous folks.

 

Capitalism: From Merriam-Webster: “An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.”

 

Within our current system of capitalism, the end goal is to accumulate wealth, and that has been done at the expense of the working class. While in the U.S. our mixed economy utilizes government intervention to create certain safety nets for rights such as housing, food, and healthcare, it is not enough. As legendary capitalist Ray Dalio writes in Why and How Capitalism Needs to be Reformed:

 

“Most capitalists don’t know how to divide the economic pie well and most socialists don’t know how to grow it well...we are now at a juncture in which people of different ideological inclinations will work together to skillfully re-engineer the system so that the pie is both divided and grown well or we will have great conflict and some form of revolution that will hurt most everyone and will shrink the pie.”

 

Classism: Prejudice or discrimination due to one’s social class. This can be based on a variety of factors including individual/generational wealth, education level/prestige, and occupation. Often, classism assumes moral or character traits in those of a lower class while overlooking the discriminatory structures that prevent equal access to advancing one’s social status.

 

Colorism: Prejudice or discrimination due to one’s skin color, where an individual with lighter skin is treated more favorably than another individual with darker skin. Colorism can also be viewed as privilege conferred on an individual for having lighter skin. Colorism and classism also often go hand in hand: across Asia, having darker skin color is often viewed as “undesirable” given its associations with the skin color of a laborer.

 

Critical Race Theory (CRT): Critical race theory is a framework developed in the 1970s and 1980s to understand and combat systemic racism in a post civil-rights era. CRT “argues, as a starting point, that the axis of American social life is fundamentally constructed in race,” but “this idea has been purposefully ignored, subdued, and marginalized in both the dominant and public discourse.” (Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice) CRT questions the ability of societal structures, such as law and law enforcement, to counteract white supremacy when perpetuating false notions of colorblindness and post-racialism, among others.

 

CRT’s principles are rooted in lived experiences and social movements, and have grown across disciplines. Founding CRT scholars—including Kimberlé Crenshaw—were mostly Black, but quickly expanded to incorporate other marginalized communities and involve other racial conversations. Mari Matsuda was among this first wave of scholars, and asked as early as 1990 if Asian Americans were becoming the “racial bourgeoisie.”

 

Dominant Group: The group of people in society who have the most access to power, privilege, and social status and face the least amount of discrimination and potential to be harmed by others. Societal, legal, and institutional systems are built by and for the dominant group to expressly keep them in power at the expense of marginalized groups. The dominant group in the United States is white people, and more specifically wealthy, cisgender, heterosexual, affluent, white men.

 

Elitism: Preference for individuals belonging to the elite class, a select group of people that can be based on both intrinsic (e.g., conformity to current beauty standards, “measurable” intelligence) or extrinsic qualities (e.g., expertise in special skills, wealth).

 

Intersectionality: A theoretical framework proposed by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw that posits multiple social categories (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status) intersect at the micro level (individual experience) to reflect interlocking systems of privilege and/or oppression at the macro (social-structural) level, such as a combination of racism, sexism, and heterosexism.

 

Marginalized Identities: People who have, and continue to suffer from inequities in our society, including: women, Black people, indigenous people, non-Black people of color, poor people, people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and LGBTQIA+ people.

 

Marginalization: The prevention or limitation of full participation in society. This can be observed through overt exclusions from opportunities in the job market, healthcare system, public benefit programs, and community activities, as well as through covert pressures to hide aspects of one’s authentic self due to fears of ostracization.

 

Model Minority Myth: A harmful narrative based on stereotypes of Asian Americans as a highly successful, upwardly mobile group that have outperformed other racial minorities. In the model minority myth, the success of Asian Americans is usually attributed to an innate ability and/or strong cultural norms and is used to suggest Asian Americans no longer face discrimination and do not need additional governmental or societal support.

 

Mutual Aid: Mutual aid has long been a practice of marginalized populations and is built on the principles of self-organization, egalitarianism, direct action, and the desire for social transformation. From Civil Eats, “Mutual aid has historically described grassroots efforts that link real needs among the people (such as the need for food) with an inherently politicized approach to getting that need met over the long term. And, typically, mutual aid efforts operate from the assumption that only the fundamental transformation of society can truly meet those needs, and aid is mobilized in service of that larger goal."

 

Oppression: Privilege, power, and dominance by certain groups at the expense of others. Some common forms of oppression include white supremacy, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and ableism.

 

Paternalism / Paternal Charity: Acts of charity that are paternalistic in nature. That is, “relating to or characterized by the restriction of the freedom and responsibilities of subordinates or dependents in their supposed interest.” (Oxford Dictionary)

 

This is a form of saviorism, where the dominant group believes they are entitled to make decisions on behalf of those receiving the charity. The most common example is the buy-one-give-one model popularized by TOMS. Another example is the placement of free community fridges in low-income neighborhoods. While often widely praised in the (white dominant) media as an effective and “feel good” means of helping others, paternalistic charity often lacks direct communication and accountability to the very community it aspires to support.

 

Performative Allyship: A lack of ongoing action or accountability in allyship. As a form of performative allyship, individuals and brands claim to be in solidarity with others without actually taking action or any meaningful steps to dismantle systems of oppression.

 

Privilege: An advantage, special right, or immunity granted to an individual based on certain factors such as race or gender. (However, privileges may not always be applicable to every individual within the group.) For example, white teenagers are able to move through public spaces without worrying about safety while Black teenagers cannot. Even developing a taste for healthy, but slightly bitter, vegetables like broccoli is rooted in privilege.

 

Racism: The belief that the race and/or ethnicity of an individual determines distinct behavioral traits or characteristics and an inherent superiority in certain individuals over others. Racism, in conjunction with institutional power, is used to create and justify forms of systemic discrimination and oppression.

 

Internalized racism is the conscious (or subconscious) acceptance of the dominant group’s racist stereotypes and negative biases of one’s own race.

 

Racial Capitalism: A system that derives social and economic value from racial identity, often in the form of exploitation. Racial capitalism was first explored by Cedric Robinson in his seminal text Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983), which critiqued Marxism for failing to consider the racial nature of capitalist (and colonialist) projects.

 

Saviorism: Saviorism, in particular, white saviorism refers to the idea that “a white person, or white culture, rescues people of color from their own situation or themselves.” Because the savior’s actions are seen as benevolent, they are not challenged or seen as a threat to the person or culture that is being “saved.” For example, Western white women calling for the “freeing” of Muslim women from wearing a hijab without consulting Muslim women if that is something they actually want.

 

Saviorism tends to be practiced by the dominant group in society, namely white men. However, marginalized individuals can also exhibit the white savior complex by, for example, more easily accepting expertise if it comes from a white male source versus a non-white, non-male expert. This is simply the result of internalized white male supremacy.

 

Saviors are products of our system of values, and exist in all facets of society. For example, voluntourism. Consider this article from No White Savior’s Resource list, Why Are White People Expats When The Rest of Us Are Immigrants.

 

Scarcity Mentality: Scarcity mentality is the idea that everyone exists along a spectrum of competition instead of collaboration. This mentality assumes there is a finite amount of resources and assets (tangible or intangible), and that every resource obtained by one person or group is at the expense of another. Therefore, resources should only be reserved for those in our closest circle(s).

 

Solidarity: An awareness, understanding, and unity as a result of shared identities, interests, or shifting opportunity structures. (Tormos, 2017) Solidarity can be expressed within a group (in-group solidarity) or to another group (out-group solidarity), where membership to a group is formed on axes such as race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and profession.

 

In an intersectional approach to solidarity, there is an ongoing process of creating ties and coalitions across social group differences by negotiating power asymmetries. Solidarity requires one to recognize and represent all intersectionally marginalized social groups formed by multiple interactions and linkages between different social structures and lived experiences.

 

Tokenization: From Oxford Reference: “The practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people (tokens) from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality.”

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Tokenism gives those in power the appearance of being non-racist and even champions of diversity because they recruit and use BIPOC as racialized props, while in actuality maintaining power structures that they benefit from.

 

Transformative Justice (TJ): From Transform Harm: “A political framework and approach for responding to violence, harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to respond to violence without creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can be thought of as a way of ‘making things right,’ getting in ‘right relation,’ or creating justice together.”

 

Transformative justice responses and interventions are based on the principles of not relying on state/governmental enforcement (e.g., police), not reinforcing or perpetuating violence (e.g., criminalizing offenders), and actively cultivating practices that prevent violence (e.g., social safety nets that prevent the major causes of crime, such as poverty and abuse).