Research Topic Starters

Anti-Racist: Someone who opposes and actively fights against racism. (Source)

BIPOC: An acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color

Colonialism: Domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation; the practice of extending and maintaining  a nation's political and economic control over another people or area. (Source)

Implicit Bias: Attitudes towards or stereotypes associated with people that exist without our conscious knowledge (Source)

Intersectionality: The idea that individuals are shaped by and identify with a vast array of cultural, structural, sociobiological, economic, and social contexts. (Source)

Micro aggressions: The everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. (Source)

People of Color: A term generally used to describe anyone who is not white. The term encompasses all people who experience systemic racism. However, when able, it is best to refer to people by their individual identities, rather than referring to them as a group, which can sometimes be dehumanizing and invalidate individual experiences. (Source)

Racism: A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race (Source)

Restorative Justice: A theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior (Source)

Social Justice: Fair treatment of all people in a society, including respect for the rights of minorities and equitable distribution of resources among members of a community. (Source)

Systemic Racism (Also known as institutional racism): Policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair and harmful treatment of others based on race. (Source)

White Fragility: The tendency among members of the dominant white cultural group to have a defensive, wounded, angry, or dismissive response to evidence of racism. (Source)

White Privilege: The unearned and mostly unacknowledged societal advantage that members of the dominant white racial group have and members of nonwhite groups do not, separate but compounding with wealth, income, class, education, and other demographic factors that form individua identities. (Source)

White Supremacy: The belief, theory, or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial and ethnic groups, especially Black people, and are therefore rightfully the dominant group in any society. (Source)