Glossary of Terms

Jump to Terms to Avoid

Language can be used to engage or divide. The language we use relating to challenging intersectional issues of systemic racism, environmental inequities, and economic exploitation allows us to honor, celebrate, and amplify voices of BIPOC, women, and LGBTQIA+ movement leaders, activists, and communities working toward a world of interdependence, liberation, and resilience. This is not intended to be a be-all-and-end-all list for inclusive language — it provides guidelines for ways that we can employ inclusive language and integrate a racial equity lens in our writing.

This is not intended to be comprehensive but reflects the language MSC uses in conversations regarding social justice, diversity, and allyship. In every context, these meanings may change and evolve, but they provide a starting point for our community and our website visitors to engage in open and honest conversation throughout our ecosystem. We hope it will be used as a tool to build a shared language of understanding, and we acknowledge that we do not own this thinking – there is a community producing this, from the languages we use to the concepts and insights that we suggest. We acknowledge our infinite indebtedness to others and suggest you explore the references at the bottom of the page to learn more.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Abolition

A political vision and broad strategy that eliminates imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creates lasting alternatives to punishment and incarceration. Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.

Accountability

How individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions and acknowledge the values and the groups for which they are responsible. To be accountable, one must be visible, with a transparent agenda and process.

Afrofuturism

The philosophical intersection of imagination, history, the future, and liberation melds African Diaspora culture with technology.

Afro-Latinx

Individuals with diverse and multifaceted self-identities hailing from Latin America and the diaspora. Folks may use a range of terms to describe themselves, including but not limited to Black Latinx (or “negro(a)/x” in Spanish), Afrodescendant (or “afrodescendiente” in Spanish), and Afro Latinx.

Ageism

Term to describe the stereotyping, prejudice, and/or discrimination people face based on their age, regardless of their age group. This phenomenon has a pervasive impact on our society, ranging from the workplace (e.g., losing a job due to age) to healthcare (e.g., doctors not taking older individuals seriously).

Ally

A person who makes the commitment and effort to recognize their privilege (based on gender, class, race, sexual identity, etc.). A person who works in solidarity with oppressed groups in the struggle for justice. Allies understand that it is in their interest to end all forms of oppression, even those from which they may benefit in concrete ways.

Anti-Black

A two-part formation that both voids the values of Blackness while systematically marginalizing Black people and their issues. The first form of anti-Blackness is overt racism and the covert structural and systemic racism that categorically predetermines the socioeconomic status of Black people in this country. The second form of anti-Blackness is the unethical disregard for anti-Black institutions and policies as a product of class, race, and/or gender privilege that certain individuals experience due to anti-Black institutions and policies. The first form of overt racism protects the second form of anti-Blackness.

Anti-racist

A theory that deliberately takes action to dismantle a system characterized by white supremacy and anti-Black racism and uncovers various manifestations of racism, including overt and covert, interpersonal and institutional, historical and contemporary, persistent and emerging.

Beloved Community

Coined by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the concept describes a society built on economic and social inclusivity, a community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, exploitation, and hate.

Bigotry

Intolerant prejudice that glorifies one group and denigrates members of other groups.

BIPOC

Referring to those who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color.

Black Girl Magic

The acknowledgment of the charm, competence, ingenuity, and tenacity of Black women in a society tainted by anti-Black sexism, as well as a deliberate attempt to emphasize the contribution of Black women in every facet of American life. This sentiment can be encapsulated by terms such as #BlackGirlMagic and #ProfessionalBlackGirl, while the opposite would be represented by the term misogynoir.

Black Lives Matter

An ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black humanity, Black contributions to society, and Black resilience in the face of deadly oppression. A political movement started in 2013 by three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi; it addresses systemic and state violence against African Americans.

Climate Justice

As a form of environmental justice, climate justice means that all species have the right to access and obtain the resources needed to have an equal chance of survival and freedom from discrimination. As a movement, climate justice advocates are working from the grassroots up to create real solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation that ensure the right of all people to live, learn, work, play, and pray in safe, healthy, and clean environments.

Climate Resilience

A future in which ecosystems, human labor, and cultures are integrated into a thriving regenerative web of life.

Colonization

Invasion, dispossession, and subjugation need not be military; it can begin — or continue — as a geographical intrusion in the form of agricultural, urban, or industrial encroachments. Such incursion is the dispossession of vast amounts of land from the original inhabitants, 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.

Code-switching

The act of switching between two or more languages or dialects during conversation. For example, Latinx Americans may alternate between Spanish, Indigenous/Native dialects, and English, while Black Americans may switch between African American Vernacular English (or Black English) and Standard English. This practice is often used within a particular community or at home, and individuals do not typically code-switch when communicating with someone who does not share their language.

Color-blindness

The racial ideology that assumes the best way to end discrimination is by focusing on commonalities between people, such as their shared humanity, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity. This is a term that should be avoided in transformative movement work.

Community Care

Communities can utilize their power, privilege, and resources to assist individuals within and beyond their immediate sphere of influence, such as friends, neighbors, colleagues, or fellow members of an organization. This may involve activism, practicing anti-racism, speaking out against injustices, contributing funds to organizations, or simply asking, “What do you need, and how can I help?”

Community Land Trust

Inspired by the collaborative efforts of farmers and civil rights activists, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1969, a Community Land Trust is an endeavor to ensure lasting housing affordability and community stewardship. By distinguishing land ownership from property ownership, it ensures homes are accessible to low-income and moderate-income families while preserving the essence of community participation and control. This term also applies to initiatives aimed at preserving natural habitats, preventing urban sprawl, and maintaining green spaces.

Community Organizing

Through unity, the collective spirit and wisdom, and shared goals, community organizing seeks to kindle transformation and ensure all voices resonate across echelons of power to address social injustices and influence pivotal decisions.

Co-optation

The act of taking an idea, dismantling it, and then reassembling it using both original and adapted components, assigning a new name to the resulting creation, and subsequently asserting it as a novel invention or concept is a form of appropriation. This can also involve falsely asserting ownership or authorship of the original idea or innovation.

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory considers many of the same issues conventional civil rights and ethnic studies take. Still, it places them in a broader perspective, including economics, history, and even emotions and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, Critical Race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and principles of constitutional law.

Culture

The communal tapestry of practices and beliefs threading a social group together. Spanning geography, language, history, and traditions, it is the collective heartbeat echoing shared experiences and worldviews.

Cultural Appropriation

Theft of cultural elements — including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. — for one’s use, commodification, or profit, often without understanding, acknowledgment, or respect for its value in its original culture. It results from a dominant (i.e., White) culture’s right to appropriate other cultural elements.

Cultural Awareness

Where individuals recognize and appreciate the significance of race and ethnicity without perpetuating stereotypes or biases. Also referred to as racial consciousness.

Culture of Poverty

An idea that suggests that individuals from low-income backgrounds are impoverished due to a lack of work ethic, motivation, or excessive reliance on government support, as well as the belief that poverty is cyclical and linked to psychological pathologies that are passed down from generation to generation.

Decolonization

The active resistance against colonial powers and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, cultural, and psychic independence originates from a colonized nation’s own Indigenous culture.

Deep Democracy

Deep Democracy is an innovative facilitation and governance approach that emphasizes inclusive dialogue and collective decision-making, ensuring that often unheard voices from the global majority are included. Deep Democracy incorporates emotional intelligence into decision-making and conflict resolution, fostering a culture of deep listening and shared wisdom within communities and groups. This method transcends individual interests, focusing on the holistic well-being of the group and aiming for decisions that gain unanimous support. It is democratic in its core principle that every participant’s voice is crucial, advocating for a balance between majority and minority perspectives. The deep aspect of Deep Democracy lies in its commitment to engaging not just with rational ideas but also with emotions, intuitions, and underlying issues, bringing a level of authenticity and depth to conversations that lead to more meaningful and resonant outcomes.

Diaspora

The voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their homelands into new regions. The common element in all forms of the diaspora is people who live outside their natal (or imagined natal) territories and recognize that their traditional homelands are reflected deeply in the languages they speak, the religions they adopt, and the culture they produce.

Disability

Recognizing conditions that impact the body or mind, presenting unique challenges in interactions or activities. It underscores the spectrum of diverse abilities, emphasizing individual experiences within the broader human narrative.

Disadvantaged

Used to describe neighborhoods with high poverty rates. This is a term that should be avoided in transformative movement work. Instead, use: have to make ends meet on low wages; or neighborhoods with high poverty rates.

Discrimination

The unequal treatment of various groups based on race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, and other categories.

Disinvested

The systemic reduction or elimination of capital resources and the purposeful withdrawal of investment from communities, meaning developers and builders no longer spend their money to improve neighborhoods, businesses, or shared spaces in the community, resulting in less infrastructure over time.

Diversity

How people differ, including 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 can also involve different ideas, perspectives, and values.

Ecosystem

In the pursuit of equity, liberation, inclusion, and justice, the MSC Beloved Community Ecosystem comprises Movement Strategy Center’s board, staff, network partners, sponsored projects, program participants, and supporters.

Embodied Practice

An embodiment practice is a method of using the unique sensations of our body as a tool to develop awareness, stay present, self-regulate, feel whole, find balance, feel connected, know ourselves, love ourselves, and be empowered.

Emotional Labor

The effort required to manage emotions and behaviors in accordance with the demands of a job. This includes regulating emotions to meet the expectations of employers, colleagues, and customers. Unfortunately, emotional labor is often disproportionately borne by BIPOC individuals, particularly women. For example, suppressing negative reactions to discriminatory comments or pretending to be cheerful to appease customers.

Equality

Approaching each individual with uniform treatment, often overlooking historical and structural imbalances that have favored some while disadvantaging others. While aspirations of colorblindness arise in an attempt to counteract prejudice, they can inadvertently perpetuate disparities by neglecting systemic forces that have long shaped perceptions.

Equitable Intermediary

Equitable Intermediaries are committed to aiding grassroots-led groups — particularly those without tax-exempt status and from strategically undervalued communities — while advocating for equity in foundational practices and decision-making.

Equity

Recognizing that each person has different circumstances and allocating the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equally positive outcome.

Ethnicity

Refers to identifying a group based on a perceived cultural distinctiveness that makes the group into a “people.” A social construct, ethnicity divides people into smaller social groups based on ancestral geographical base, history, the shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests.

Extractive Economy

A capitalist system of exploitation and oppression that values consumerism, colonialism, and money over people and the planet. An extractive economy views natural resources as commodities to dig, burn, and dump with no regard for its impact on communities and utilizes oppressive force to undermine democracy, community, and workers. The extractive economy perpetuates the enclosure of wealth and power for a few through predatory financing, expropriation from land and commonly accessed goods and services, and the exploitation of human labor.

False Equivalency

A logical fallacy in which two opposing viewpoints or arguments are deemed to be equal when they are not. This fallacy relies on weak or superficial similarities to downplay the significant differences between them, thereby undermining the crucial observations and implications of those distinctions.

Forward Stance

Forward Stance is a mind-body practice that helps activists step fully into leadership, build powerful organizations, and align movements, and can provide practitioners a powerful way to learn and gain new insight through physical movement and mind-body connection. Forward Stance, created within the Reproductive Justice Movement where people and institutions must move physically (and not just mentally), cultivates four core elements: stance, awareness, energy, and rhythm.

Frontline Communities

Members of these communities include those impacted most by climate change and its root causes, which include White supremacy, patriarchy, and colonization. These communities are embedded in legacy struggles against social, economic, and environmental injustices exacerbated by extractive and polluting industries that have been purposely and systemically situated adjacent to or within said communities. This disproportionate exposure to climate and environmental injustice results in acute and chronic impacts to human and environmental health. Frontline organizations are those created by and for frontline communities, and are accountable to a base of frontline community members.

Gender-binary

The societal and cultural construct of gender has historically been limited to a rigid and inaccurate binary categorization, dividing individuals into strictly male or female, man or woman, and masculine or feminine. Associating gendered traits, behaviors, and appearances that correspond to these binary distinctions comes with the expectation for men to exhibit strength, aggression, and wear masculine clothing, and the expectation for women to be nurturing, domestic, and wear makeup and feminine clothing. A binary assumption also presumes that an individual’s gender identity and pronouns correspond with the sex assigned to them at birth. The reality is that gender is not binary and instead exists as an infinite spectrum, including people whose gender identities fall outside of or between the traditional man/woman framework.

Gender Non-Conforming (LGBTQIA+)

Gender Non-Conforming, referring to those who do not identify with binary gender identity.

Generational Trauma

The long-term psychological effects of trauma (both personal and communal) that can be passed down through generations of families and cultures. Beyond psychological, these generational effects are also familial, social, cultural, neurobiological, and possibly even genetic.

Implicit Bias

Negative associations that people unknowingly hold and express automatically, without conscious awareness. Implicit biases affect an individual’s attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though they may not even be aware that those biases exist within themselves. This produces behavior that diverges from the explicit attitudes that many people profess. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is often used to measure implicit biases concerning race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and other topics.

Inclusion

The act of including traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision-making in a way that shares power with authenticity.

Incubation

Physical spaces for social interaction and development in which socially vulnerable individuals or groups, through the use of cross-sectoral partnerships and community-adapted development services, are empowered to become agents of their social transformation.

Income Gap

This refers to the extent to which income is distributed unevenly among a population. In the United States, income gaps are so pronounced that America’s wealthiest ten percent now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent. The nation’s highest 0.01 percent of income earners have seen their incomes rise much faster than the rest of the top one percent in recent decades. This is a term that should be avoided in transformative movement work. Instead, use: income inequality; wage inequality; racial income inequality; or CEO/worker pay gaps.

Indigeneity

Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence, in varying degrees, of the following characteristics: close attachment to ancestral territories and the natural resources in these areas; self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group; an Indigenous language, often different from the national language; the presence of customary social and political institutions, often subsistence oriented.

Indigenous Sovereignty

Unlike tribal sovereignty, Indigenous sovereignty does not depend on nation-state recognition. It emerges from traditional knowledge unique to each Indigenous group. Encompassing spiritual beliefs, culture, language, social frameworks, political structures, and relationships with land and water, it is independent of the nation-state’s actions and continues as long as the people integral to it persist.

Individual Racism

Individual racism refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can be deliberate, or the individual may act to perpetuate or support racism without knowing what they are doing.

Integration

An act or instance of integrating a racial or other ethnic group. The goals of integration include desegregation, the process of ending systematic racial segregation, and goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial minority into the majority culture. This is a term that should be avoided in transformative movement work.

Interdependence

The essential connections between communities and nations, emphasizing that the welfare of one influences the global collective. This principle demands fair solutions to climate change, particularly championing the voices of marginalized communities and communities of the Global South who are disproportionately affected by environmental injustices. Interdependence promotes collaborative, respectful pathways, valuing Indigenous and minority wisdom, and aims for a future grounded in justice, sustainability, and collective wellbeing. It encourages unified actions and approaches that are equitable, inclusive, and uphold the dignity of all communities.

Internalized Racism

Internalized racism is 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.

Intersectionality

Coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, intersectionality can help clarify how a person can simultaneously experience privilege and oppression. For example, a Black woman in America does not experience gender inequalities in the same way as a White woman, nor does she experience racial oppression identical to that experienced by a Black man. Each race and gender intersection produces a qualitatively distinct experience.

Just Transition

A set of unifying principles and practices supporting a just society has shifted from an extractive economy to a waste-free, regenerative economy. It must be equitable and must redress past harms. Its process must be just, or the outcome will not be.

LGBTQIA+

Referring to those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer and Questioning, Intersex, Asexual.

Microaggression

Small but insidious instances of negative, derogatory, or harmful messages to individuals based on their marginalized or minority status. Microaggressions manifest in ambiguous insults, casual dismissals, and nonverbal cues that belittle or demean individuals because of their race, gender, sexuality, class, and size. In terms of race, the opposite of this is anti-racism, which involves actively opposing and dismantling the racist, imperialist, White supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal systems and beliefs.

Movement Building

The process of organizing and activating the will and capacity of people and organizations to work individually or collectively toward a shared vision.

Nationalism

Regarding nation-states, this refers to a form of patriotism characterized by chauvinism and an unwarranted sense of superiority over other countries. In the broader sense of “nation,” which may encompass racial or ethnic groups, this ideology stresses the importance of in-group solidarity and prioritization and sometimes advocates for political autonomy.

Non-binary

A general category and a particular identity for individuals whose gender identity and/or gender expression does not conform to the traditional male/female binary. While not all non-binary individuals use gender-neutral pronouns, many do. Some may also use the term “enby,” as in “n-b,” which stands for non-binary.

Nonviolent Communication

Rooted in the principle of Ahimsa, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) emerged as a compassionate approach to interaction, championed by Marshall Rosenberg and reflecting the nonviolence teachings of figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. NVC principles, deeply entrenched in personal, interpersonal, and societal realms, serve as pathways to foster connections and ensure every need is addressed with empathy and mutual respect.

Oppression

A system that consolidates and exercises structural and institutional power, primarily benefiting a dominant few. This concentration of power often leads to a disparity in wealth, resources, and opportunities, causing marginalized groups to experience diminished access, safety, and security. In essence, oppression stands in stark contrast to the principles of social justice.

Patriarchy

A societal structure where men, both individually and collectively, subjugate individuals of other genders, encompassing mental, social, economic, and political aspects. Unlike the term sexism, patriarchy explicitly highlights the power dynamic in society. The patriarchal dynamic manifests itself in various ways, including individual actions such as street harassment, talking over women, and enforcing gender norms on children; institutionalized practices such as gender segregated bathrooms, the wage gap, and the gendered division of caretaking work; and cultural norms like the sexualization of women in media and the perpetuation of a binary gender myth.

Power

The ability to influence others and impose one’s beliefs. All power is relational, and different relationships either reinforce or disrupt one another. The importance of the concept of power to anti-racism is evident: racism cannot be understood without understanding that power is an individual relationship and a cultural one. Those power relationships are constantly shifting. Power can be used malignantly and intentionally but need not be, and individuals within a culture may benefit from the power they are unaware of. Cultural power is all-encompassing, economic power is foundational, and political power reflects economics and culture.

Prejudice

A preconceived notion or judgment about something or someone, often based on generalizations rather than personal encounters. It leans heavily on stereotypes, bypassing direct experience.

Privilege

Society’s formal and informal institutions afford unearned social power to all members of a dominant group (i.e., white privilege, male privilege, etc.). Privilege is usually invisible to those who have it because we are taught not to see it, but it puts them at an advantage over those who do not have privilege.

Prison Industrial Complex

A term used to describe the overlapping interests of governments and industries that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social, and political problems.

Queer

A term that describes identities and expressions outside the traditional notions of heterosexual and/or cisgender. This word can have multiple meanings, including serving as an umbrella term to encompass the diverse and intersectional identities within the LGBTQIA+ community and acknowledging solidarity and shared experiences among these groups. It can be used when words like “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bi” do not accurately describe a sexual orientation or for individuals whose gender identity is non-binary (such as genderqueer or queer). As a verb, “queering” can refer to applying queer theory to interpret media or challenging heteronormative and/or cisnormative standards in discourse, institutions, situations, or texts. Historically, queer was used as a pejorative term and may still be considered a slur by some, particularly older members of the LGBTQIA+ community. In the 1980s, activists began to reclaim the term as a politically radical alternative to assimilationist politics within the community. Today, the term is widely used and accepted by younger generations.

Race

A societal construct, not rooted in biology, historically used to categorize humans into broad groups like Caucasoid (European), Negroid (African), and Mongoloid (Asian). Originating from European theories, this classification inaccurately posited that these groups evolved separately, with Caucasoids deemed the most evolved. The term was designed to overshadow nuanced ethnic identities, grouping diverse communities under broad racial labels. When information is available, specificity in referencing a person’s cultural heritage and nationality is not only respectful but crucial, as broad terms like Asian encompass a diverse spectrum of ethnicities and nationalities — from Korean to Vietnamese — often obscuring their unique histories and cultural nuances. It is best to acknowledge and honor these distinctions whenever possible to provide a more accurate and meaningful understanding of an individual’s identity.

Racial Disparity

The policies, practices, and procedures across institutions like housing, education, and transportation that have discriminated based on race, making race a key determinant of one’s life outcomes.

Racial Equity

The condition that would be achieved if racial identity were no longer a statistical predictor of outcomes, including eliminating policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or that fail to eliminate them.

Racial Healing

To restore to health or soundness; to repair or set right; to restore to spiritual wholeness.

Racial Profiling

The undue suspicion and targeting of individuals based on race, ethnicity, or national origin, often under the guise of law enforcement. This practice, which assumes people of color are more likely to engage in criminal activity, leads to unjust stops, searches, and harassment, disproportionately impacting BIPOC communities.

Racial Violence

Acts of aggression rooted in racial prejudice and targeting vulnerable communities of color. This encompasses a range of oppressive actions, from economic policies and political tactics to police brutality and colonial endeavors, all aiming to uphold structural power at the expense of people of color.

Racism

A complex system of beliefs and behaviors grounded in a presumed superiority of the white race. These beliefs and behaviors are conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional, and result in the oppression of people of color and benefit the dominant group, white people.

Regenerative Economy

A regenerative economy is based on ecological restoration, community protection, equitable partnerships, justice, and full and fair participatory processes by producing, consuming, and redistributing resources in harmony with the planet, rather than extraction from the land and each other. A regenerative economy values the dignity of work and prioritizes community governance and ownership of work and resources instead of oppressive systems that devalue people and their labor through violent hoarding by the few, while supporting collective and inclusive participatory governance, rather than limiting peoples’ ability to fully shape democracy and decisions that impact their communities. This requires an explicit anti-racist, anti-poverty, feminist, and living approach that is intersectional and eschews top-down, patriarchal, classist, xenophobic, and racist ideology.

Rematriation

Returning to the ways of life that hold reverence for nature and are inclusive of many types of knowledge. It extends beyond physical restoration, distinguishing it from “repatriation,” which often involves returning artifacts or individuals. Rematriation focuses on nurturing holistic connections and restoring balance.

Repatriation

Commonly used to describe the rightful return of land, remains, and cultural items to Native communities. Tied to Eurocentric, male-dominant ideas of ownership.

Restorative Justice

A theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime and conflict. It places decisions in the hands of those most affected by wrongdoing and gives equal concern to the victim, the offender, and the surrounding community.

Reverse Racism

A term often used to describe prejudice against the racial majority. However, racism is rooted in power imbalances, where one group holds systemic influence. Situations labeled as “reverse racism” may not involve these power dynamics. For example, affirmative action aims to address historical injustices, not perpetuate them. It’s essential to focus on systemic issues in discussions about racism.

Self-determination

A characteristic of a person that leads them to make choices and decisions based on their own preferences and interests, to monitor and regulate their own actions, and to be goal-oriented and self-directing.

Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)

The circumstances surrounding a person’s birth, development, life, employment, and aging are shaped by the allocation of resources, power, and wealth on a global, national, and local scale. The various environments and settings in which individuals find themselves, such as their school, workplace, neighborhood, or church, can influence the social, economic, and physical aspects of their lives, collectively referred to as “place.” In addition to the material conditions of place, factors such as social interaction and the sense of security and well-being can also be affected by an individual’s place of residence.

Social Justice

The idea that all people should have equal rights, opportunities, and access to resources.

Somatics

A holistic way to change hearts, minds, and actions. As a transformational methodology grounded in practice, somatics supports individuals and collectives to embody issues they care about and to act together skillfully to be more impactful and whole. Somatics works through the body and engages thinking, emotions, relationships, vision, and actions through shared visions and values.

STEM

The term refers to the collective academic disciplines in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, which are commonly studied in education, utilized in the workforce, and pursued as recreational hobbies (e.g., computer coding, NASA, science fair projects). An increasing number of professionals and educators engaged in STEM fields support the inclusion of Art, referred to as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math). Advocates for STEAM acknowledge that the arts can broaden the boundaries of STEM education and its practical applications.

Structural Urbanism

An inherent bias favoring urban paradigms, perspectives, and priorities, which can overshadow and undermine rural communities. Culturally, it might undervalue rural voices, implying intellectual or moral inferiority compared to urban narratives. Economically, it often aligns with, either consciously or inadvertently, the principles of extractive capitalism.

Systemic Racism

The structure through which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various and often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial inequities among groups.

Self-determination

A characteristic of a person that leads them to make choices and decisions based on their own preferences and interests to monitor and regulate their own actions and to be goal-oriented and self-directing.

Transformative Justice

Transformative Justice (TJ) is a political framework and approach for responding to violence, harm, and abuse. It seeks to respond to violence at its most basic, 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” or creating justice together. It is an abolitionist framework that understands that prisons, police, and I.C.E. are sources of enormous amounts of violence and are systems designed to maintain social control through inherent violence.

Transformative Movement Building

Transformative Movement Building (TMB) is a holistic and comprehensive approach to transforming the world that is guided by the deepest values, vision, and purpose. TMB supports internal and external change simultaneously and integrates many levels of change — from individual, interpersonal, and relational to institutional and systemic, including the ways we live to “be the change” in everyday life.

Transformative Movements

Movements that recognize that we are whole people and whole communities and our issues and problems are interconnected; thus, our systemic solutions and movements must be interconnected.

Transformative Practice

An intentional activity, or set of activities, done regularly over an extended period to ground oneself in purpose and facilitate profound growth, embodiment, and transformation.

Tribal Sovereignty

The deep-rooted and self-sustained authority of Indigenous nations to self-regulate, an elemental power that existed long before contemporary nation-states. It signifies the prerogative of these nations to forge and honor their distinct legal systems, which include establishing tribal courts, law enforcement bodies, and legislative codes. This form of governance is not just a legal right but a core component of cultural identity and very being, enduring despite intersecting with federal and state legal structures. Although historical federal enactments have restricted tribal sovereignty, particularly in criminal jurisdiction and law enforcement, it remains, enabling tribes to continuously reclaim and enhance their self-determination.

Under-resourced

This refers to relatively heavily populated areas of high poverty and low income. It is often thought that these communities are largely Black and/or brown inner-city neighborhoods located in metropolitan areas.

Violence

A principal means of enforcing oppression through a range of coercive mechanisms to establish, consolidate, or sustain power. Spanning across economic, political, cultural, religious, psychological, and physical dimensions, violence encompasses diverse behaviors and tactics wielded harmfully.

Wage Gap

A term used to describe the disparity in earnings between men and women as well as non-binary individuals in the workforce. It is a persistent issue where women and non-binary individuals tend to earn less than men. Moreover, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx women face more significant pay gaps than their White and Asian counterparts, with disabled women earning less than non-disabled women.

White Fragility

A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable for White people, triggering a range of defensive moves. These can include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and/or guilt, and behaviors including argumentation, silence, and/or leaving a stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate White racial equilibrium.

White Privilege

Refers to the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed on people solely because they are White. Generally, White people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

White Supremacy

An 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. White supremacy is ever present in our institutional and cultural assumptions. It assigns value, morality, goodness, and humanity to the White group while casting others as immoral, evil, inhuman, and undeserving.

White Supremacy Culture

Artificial and historically constructed, White Supremacy Culture is the dominant culture (that of the White middle class) that shapes our institutions, our media, the way we see ourselves, and each other. White Supremacy Culture is unconsciously used as the norm and standard that promotes White supremacy thinking, training, internalized attitudes, and behaviors that can show up in any group or organization and are harmful to people of color and White people. Those characteristics are perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, objectivity, right to comfort, and progress.

Terms to Avoid

Disability

Avoid

Use This Instead

Non-disabled: Person without disability

Able-bodied: Normal (use “normal” only in medical/scientific context such as “normal test result” or “normal growth”)

Abnormal

Atypical: Disabled person; Person with a disability

Addict Alcoholic Junkie

Someone with a drug/alcohol addiction; someone with alcoholism; someone in recovery and/or remission if someone is trying to recover from their addiction

Blind

Blind (for someone who has complete loss of sight); legally blind (for someone who has almost complete loss of sight) Limited vision/Low vision/Partially sighted/Visually impaired (for someone who is neither legally or completely blind)

Cripple/Crip

Avoid: although some disability activists have reclaimed the terms, to ensure respect, allies and those without disabilities should not use them out of respect.

Deaf

Deaf and hard of hearing community (when referring to the community of people with all kinds of hearing loss). Partial hearing loss/Partially deaf (for those who have some hearing loss)

Defect/Defective

Person with a congenital disability; person living with a congenital disability

Differently-abled Special Gifted

Person with a disability

Mad Psycho Deranged Retarded

People with mental illness

Special Needs

Functional needs

Vertically-challenged Midget

Dwarf; someone with dwarfism; short stature; little person

Wheelchair-bound

Wheelchair user: Person who uses a wheelchair

Economy/Poverty

Avoid

Use This Instead

Disadvantaged Distressed

Disinvested: Having to make ends meet on low wages; neighborhoods with access to fewer opportunities; low-income neighborhoods/communities.

Economic Independence

Economic mobility Economic opportunity Equity Financial stability Giving families the tools they need

Income Gap

Income inequality, wage inequality, racial income inequality, CEO/worker pay gap.

Inner City

Neighborhoods with high poverty rates

Integration (as a solution to poverty)

Challenges due to caste apartheid; ensuring families have the tools/resources they need

Low Opportunity

Under-resourced

Poor/Poorest

Low income

Redneck Hillbilly Trailer Trash

Rural residents (to refer to individuals based on their geographical location without any negative connotations); Working class (to acknowledge their economic status without derogatory judgment); Farmers or agricultural workers (for specificity if their occupation is in agriculture); Community members (for everyone without discrimination) Residents of [specific location] (name the specific area they are from, highlighting their community without prejudice)

Struggling

People facing barriers/multiple barriers

Struggling to Make Ends Meet

Working hard to make ends meet

Supporting Families

Strengthening families

Vulnerable (except for homelessness)

People with incomes below the poverty line

Working Poor

Low-wealth

Gender/Sex

Avoid

Use This Instead

Bathroom Bill

Non-discrimination law/ordinance

Gender-bender

They/them/their

Gender Identity Disorder Sex Change

Gender affirmation

Hermaphrodite

Intersex

Non-straight/Not Straight

Queer LGBTQIA+ Genderqueer Genderless Genderfluid

Pre-operative Post-operative

Reassignment surgery Gender confirmation

Prostitute Prostitution

Sex worker Sex work

Sexual Preference

Sexual orientation

Sexual Change Operation

Surgery

She-male

Transition Transitioning Trans woman/man

Shim Transsexual (unless that is how the person identifies)

Agender Bigender

Transgendered

Transgender people Person

Transvestite (unless that is how the person identifies)

Non-binary Non-gender

Race/Indigeneity

Avoid

Use This Instead

Color blindness

Cultural awareness Racial awareness/consciousness

Full-blood Half-breed Half-caste

Avoid: although some Indigenous activists have reclaimed the terms, allies and those without Indigenous ancestry should not use them out of respect.

Indian (unless it is a quote or referring to an already established name)

Indigenous (for global references)Original Peoples (for global references)Aboriginal Peoples (specifically Australia)First Nations (specifically Canada)Native Americans (specifically Americas)

Minority/Minorities

People of the global majority

Negro

Avoid: although some Black activists have reclaimed the terms, allies and those without African-American ancestry should not use them out of respect

Sources

A friendly reminder: we’ve done our research, but you should, too! Check our sources against your own, and always exercise sound judgment.