Important DEI Terms

Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices, and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.

Colonialism 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, industrial and cultural encroachments.

Postcolonialism involves practices, beliefs, and social structures that foster liberating possibilities as colonized people resist and transcend colonialism’s oppressive effects. Postcolonialism is especially interested in unmasking colonialism’s epistemological frameworks.
 

Culture is a process of creating, communicating, and contesting values, meanings, and deeply held convictions. Culture involves, for example, language, geography, customs, beliefs, narratives, practices/rituals, communal structures, and objects/artifacts. 

The various and valuable ways that individuals and groups differ from each other including, but not limited to, ability, age, economic status, ethnicity/race, gender identity, immigration status, linguistic traditions, nationality, political beliefs, religious/spiritual/moral traditions, and sexual identity.

Intentional individual and institutional efforts to counteract the disproportionate amount of privilege and power unfairly afforded to some people while denied to others.

Intentional individual and institutional efforts to create environments where people can express and learn from their differences in safe, creative, and courageous ways.

The everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to targeted persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.

The systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group.

Sexism is the systematic oppression of women. It develops a socially constructed hierarchy of gender that seeks to justify and secure male superiority and domination.

Heterosexism is the systematic oppression of LGBTQ+ people. It develops a socially constructed hierarchy of sexual identity that distributes social rewards and penalties based on what it deems is “normal” and “deviant” sexuality.
 

The restoration of unjust relationships and the pursuit of reciprocal relationships that promote individual and communal well-being.

The use of social identity to access resources and to produce an effect.

White supremacy is the idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.