Social Justice Vocabulary

Ableism →  Discrimination faced by those with mental and or physical disabilities usually in favor of those who are able-bodied individuals. May be casual or systematic. Learn more about ableism here.

Ageism → Discrimination and or stereotyping faced by those of a certain age group especially elderly people. May be casual or systematic.

BIPOC → An acronym for Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Capitalism → An economic and political system wherein commerce is owned and controlled by private entities for profit. Learn more about capitalism here.

Cisgender → When one’s gender identity correlates with their sex (see definition of Sex below).

Classism → Prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class (Google).

Code switching → When a speaker alternates between two different languages or language varieties based on their environment and who is around.

Colonialism → The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically (Google).

Colonization → The process of settling in an area inhabited by Indigenous peoples.

Colorblind racism → The act or practice of treating all people the same regardless of race (Merriam-Webster). While this may be positively associated with freedom from racism, color blindness in practice is associated with a failure to acknowledge and address existing racial inequities and differences in racial identity.

Communism → An economic and political system, introduced by Karl Marx, wherein all property is publicly owned and people work and are paid according to their abilities and needs.

Covert racism → Racial discrimination that is disguised and subtle.

Disenfranchise → To deprive people of a right or privilege.

Diversity → The practice of including and or involving people from different social, racial, and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual identities, and orientations.

Elitist → A person who believes that a society or system should be led by an elite (Google).

Ethnic cleansing → A purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas (United Nations).

Eugenics → Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits (HISTORY). The belief in Eugenics is an ableist belief.

Explicit bias →  When an individual is aware of their prejudice towards a certain group.

Feminism → A movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. Learn more about feminism here.

Gender → A social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts. Each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender (Planned Parenthood).

Genocide → Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation, ethnic, racial, or religious group: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and/or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (United Nations).

Gentrification → The process of pushing out people who reside in a lower-income area by those who are wealthier.

Hegemony → Political, economic, and often military dominance of a state over other states.

Heterosexuality → Sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex.

Heteronormativity → The world view that those who are heterosexual are the norm and the standard.

Homosexuality → Sexual attraction to people of the same sex.

Homophobia → The dislike and prejudice against members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Immigrant → A person who moves from their country of origin to another country.

Implicit bias → When one has an incorrect preconceived notion of a people or associates stereotypes with that certain group of people without one’s own conscious knowledge.

Inclusion → The practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded from them.

Intersectionality → The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, gender, class, and more. Learn about the article where Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term here.

Islamophobia → The dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslim people.

Marginalized → To put or keep a person or group of people in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group.

Meritocracy → The giving or holding of power to people chosen on the basis of their ability.

Microaggression → A statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized racial or ethnic minority. Learn more about microaggressions here.

Minority → A group of people whose practices, race, religion, ethnicity, or other characteristics are fewer in numbers than the main groups of those classifications.

Misogyny → The dislike, prejudice against, or, in extremes, the hatred of women.

Misogynoir → Misogyny directed towards Black women where race and gender both play roles in bias. A "portmanteau" or a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others. In this case, misogynoir is formed of the words "misogyny," (the hatred of women) and "noir" (French for "black"). Learn more about misogynoir here.

Neocolonial → Relating to or characterized by the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries (Google).

Oppressed → Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority (Wikipedia).

Overt racism → A form of racial discrimination that openly expresses prejudice and is more obvious rather than subtle. 

POC → An acronym for person/people of color.

Patriarchy → A social system in which men hold primary power and dominate in roles of political leadership, authority, social privilege, and control of property.

Post-racial → Denoting or relating to a period of society in which racial prejudice and discrimination no longer exists.

Preferred pronouns → A set of pronouns that an individual wants others to use in order to reflect that person's gender identity  

Queer → An umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender.

Radical → Advocating for complete political and or social change, often representing or supporting an (extreme or) progressive section of a political party.

Radicalization → The process by which an individual or group comes to adopt increasingly radical views in opposition to political, social, or religious status quo. 

Sex → Sex is a label (male or female or intersex) that you’re assigned by a doctor at birth based on the genitals you’re born with and the chromosomes you have (Planned Parenthood).

Social hierarchy → A society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (Wikipedia). 

Socialism → A political and economic theory or social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned and or regulated by the community as a whole. Learn more about socialism here.

TERF → An acronym for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, who is a person who excludes the rights of transgender women from their advocacy of women’s rights.

Transphobia → The dislike of or prejudice against transgender people.

Unconscious bias → When one acts on unconscious deeply ingrained biases, attitudes, and stereotypes.

Xenophobia → The dislike or prejudice of people from other countries (Google).