Systems-Led Anti-Racism Glossary of Terms

The following terms were developed in reference to the Calgary Anti-Racism Education (CARED) Glossary (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, n.d.) and the Canada Race Relations Foundation Glossary of Terms ( https://crrf-fcrr.ca/glossary-of-terms/) and additional references listed below.)  

Belonging: Belonging refers to the experience of feeling connected to a group and feeling seen and valued for our full humanity (our culture, values, beliefs, worldviews, and experiences). 

Bias: Views, opinions, preferences, and prejudices that we learn, often without realizing it, from community, family, school, and media.  We carry these ideas, and they impact our choices even if we are not always aware of them.   

Colonialism: When one country takes control of another country by dominating the land, controlling the people, exploiting the resources, and enforcing its own governance, policies, education, cultures, and practices. Colonialism often involves cultural genocide (the killing of people, languages, and cultures) to maintain control.  Settler colonialism involves the displacement of the original peoples by settlers who take over the land and control the society.    

Critical Race Theory: Critical- Race- Theory- CRT, refers to a set of theories developed by legal scholars in the USA in the 1980s to help understand and explain why racism persists (Ladson-Billings, 2021) Critical means to examine an issue or idea with a questioning mind-to ask questions about who it impacts, how it considers power, whose perspectives it considers, etc.  Race refers to the social categories that people have been placed in based on their skin colour and features. Theory means an idea intended to explain how something works , and it is tested and supported by research.  

Dignity: Dignity is the feeling of being respected in our full humanity (including our values, beliefs, worldviews, cultures, and experiences).  When people feel a full sense of dignity, they do not feel diminished or ridiculed for being full selves.  

Diversity: The recognition that all people are unique and have a wide range of identities, cultural backgrounds, worldviews, values, beliefs, and experiences. To celebrate diversity in the workplace is to make a space that values all of these unique qualities and disrupts a hierarchy of human value. 

Equity: Equity is the acknowledgement that not all humans have equal access to resources and power, and it works to address that inequality by giving different supports based on need. Because of the impact of colonialism and racism, many of our systems are Eurocentric, meaning that they centre and value White European ways of knowing, being, and doing. This creates barriers for Racialized people to access resources and power. 

 Racial Equity works to disrupt these barriers to ensure that every person has access to resources and power by providing differing opportunities and supports based on what is needed to counteract the barriers shaped by racism.  

Eurocentric: The centering of White European ways of knowing, being, doing, and relating.  

Hierarchy: Creating categories and leveling them based on value. Racial hierarchies categorize humans based on racial identity and give more value and power to people identified as White and less value and power to Racialized people. Racial hierarchies create a gradient of power and value based on how close one’s skin tone is to whiteness.  

Inclusion: The act of making people feel welcomed into a space, organization, institution or society. Inclusive practices ensure that the space is accessible to all people and communicates a direct invitation to participate.  

Indigenous Identity: refers to individuals who identify as First Nations, Métis or Inuit, as well as members of First Nations bands and/ or Registered or Treaty Indians. (Calgary Economic Development;  City of Calgary & MNP,  2023)  

Intersectionality/ Intersectional: Recognizing that the multiple parts of our identities overlap and impact the way that we experience the world and the discrimination we face based on hierarchies. For example, people can be treated with discrimination based on the individual identity elements of race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. However, these elements all overlap in some people, creating a complex experience of discrimination.  For example, a Black man will have a different experience of discrimination than a Black, trans, lesbian, young woman. 

Intersectional Framework:  A way of looking at lived experience data that understands that the multiple parts of our identities overlap and impact the way that we experience the world and discrimination based on hierarchies. For example, people can be treated with discrimination based on the individual identity elements of race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. However, these elements all overlap in some people, creating a complex experience of discrimination.  For example, a Black cisgender heterosexual man will have a different experience of discrimination than a Black, trans, lesbian young woman.    

Lateral Violence:  Lateral violence refers to acts of racial discrimination perpetrated by one Racialized person to another Racialized person.  The ongoing perpetuation of white supremacy through media, education, cultural practices, economic systems, political systems and social systems can make some Racialized people believe in the false hierarchy that suggests that those closer to whiteness have more value. This can cause some Racialized people to look down upon others and treat them with racial discrimination. Lateral violence is founded in an implicit acceptance of white supremacy, a belief in racial hierarchies developed as a survival response to racism, and a misguided belief in the myth of meritocracy (some people deserve more because they work harder).  Lateral violence can present as microaggressions.   

Mental Models: Habits of thought—deeply held beliefs and assumptions and taken-for-granted ways of operating that influence how we think, what we do, and how we talk” (Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018).  

Microassaults: (Intentional) racism in the form of “Explicit derogations characterized primarily by a verbal or nonverbal attack meant to hurt the intended victim through name calling, avoidant behaviour, or purposeful discriminatory practices” (University of Leicester, n.d.). 

 Microinsult: Characterized by communications that ‘convey’ rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s (racial) heritage or identity. They are often subtle snubs frequently unknown to the perpetrator but clearly convey a hidden insulting message to the recipient” (University of Leicester, n.d.). 

Microinvalidation: Characterized by communications that exclude, negate or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of an individual “(University of Leicester, n.d.). 

Policies: “Government, institutional and organizational rules, regulations, and priorities that guide 

the entity’s own and others’ actions” (Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018). 

Power Dynamics: “The distribution of decision-making power, authority, and both formal and informal influence among individuals and organizations” (Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018).  

Practices: “Espoused activities of institutions, coalitions, networks, and other entities targeted to 

improving social and environmental progress. Also, within the entity, the procedures, guidelines, or informal shared habits that comprise their work” ((Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018). 

Prejudice:  To “pre-judge” an individual based on how they look.  Prejudices are assumptions one makes of other people before getting to know them. Prejudices can be informed by stereotypes; the way people are repeatedly presented in the media, or based on past experiences. Prejudices can be both positive assumptions, such as, “All Black people are good dancers,” or negative assumptions, “Black people are dangerous”.  Prejudices are damaging because they make assumptions about who someone is instead of getting to know them as individuals.   

Proportionality:  a mathematical concept that compares parts of groups with the whole group.  

Proportion: “a proportion is a part, share, or number considered in comparative relation to a whole” ( Statistics Canada, 2021, timestamp: 12:54)    

Disproportionate representation:   when one racial group is represented in an area of society more or less than their representation in the society as a whole.    

Racism: “Racism is the process by which systems and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. Racism is more than just prejudice in thought or action. It occurs when this prejudice – whether individual or institutional – is accompanied by the power to discriminate against, oppress or limit the rights of others.” (Britannica, n.d.) 

Race: “Race” is a socially constructed grouping based on skin colour, hair colour and texture, and facial features. Socially constructed means that racial groups were determined by people and while our features are biological, the groupings are not.  The definition of racial groups (ie. who is White or Black) has changed over time based on the dominant group’s need for power. The definition of racial groups is also different based on location. For example, someone who is seen as Black in Canada may not be seen as Black in Nigeria.  Racial groups were developed to maintain power and keep people separated. They have evolved to connect with culture and these racial groups have real-life impacts on our daily lives.   

Race-based Data: Race-based data gathers information about people’s racial identity or “race”. This data can be used to identify patterns of behaviour that lead to systemic racism. Race-based data can be aggregated or disaggregated.  

Racial Discrimination: Based on a false hierarchy that gives more value to some racial groups than others, racial discrimination is the denial of equal treatment and opportunities to individuals or groups based on race. Racial discrimination creates barriers for racialized people to experience the human needs of safety, dignity, and belonging as well as opportunities needed to live a fulfilling life.   

Racialized: Racialization is the complex process through which groups come to be designated as being of a particular “race” and on that basis, they are subjected to differential and/or unequal treatment (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, n.d.).  The term “Racialized” is used to identify people who are not White because it draws attention to the fact that racial groupings were created and assigned to non-white people for the dominant group to maintain power.   

Relationships & Connections: “Quality of connections and communication occurring among actors in the system, especially among those with differing histories and viewpoints” (Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018). 

Representation (racial): how many people from each racial group are present in different areas of society. For example, how many Black people are present in leadership roles.    

Overrepresented:  there is more of one group represented than compared to the group’s representation in the whole.  For example, there is a bigger percentage of Caucasian (white) men that have been Mayor of Calgary than compared to the percentage of Caucasian(white) men in Calgary.   

Underrepresented: there is less of one group represented than compared to the group’s representation in the whole. For example, there is a smaller percentage of Racialized people who have been Mayor of Calgary than compared to the percentage of Racialized people in Calgary. 

Resource Flows: “How money, people, knowledge, information, and other assets such as infrastructure are allocated and distributed” ((Kania, Kramer & Senge, 2018). 

Safety: Safety is the experience of being free from risk, harm, violence, and pain,  psychologically, physically, and emotionally.  

Systemic racism: Patterns of behaviour, policies or practices that are part of the social or administrative structures of an organization or institution, and which create or perpetuate inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. Prejudicial beliefs accompanied by power are used to discriminate and create barriers to participation in society and life.   

Trauma Responses: Trauma responses may present in different ways. Situations, words, and experiences can all be “triggering”. Triggering refers to the brain’s act of responding to the present as though it we are still in the past (Fisher, 2020).  Some common trauma responses are fight, flight, and freeze.  The fight response can make people act out aggressively or argumentatively. The flight response can present as distancing or avoidance. And the freeze responses can present as people not responding or procrastinating their duties or responses (Fisher, 2020).     

Unfair treatment: Differential treatment of one group in comparison with another because of certain characteristics (i.e. paying lower wages to women in comparison to men for work of equal value).  SEE:  Racial Discrimination  

White Supremacy: A false belief system and ideology that suggests that whiteness and white people are superior to all others.  This ideology was developed and used to justify the extraction and control of resources around the world in the form of colonialism and imperialism, by creating a hierarchy that places whiteness at the top and all other racialized categories of human beings beneath. The ideology of white supremacy has been upheld by many right-wing, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist groups.  

Worldviews:  Our cultures, backgrounds, upbringings, and schooling all impact how we view the world and the assumptions we make about how to live in the world. Diverse worldviews inform our understandings and our ways of engaging with each other. Often, colonial worldviews that inform communication styles and our definitions of success, progress, and challenge can be taken for granted and lead to misunderstandings.  To proactively address the possible different perspectives and taken-for-granted understandings, we can discuss the following as a way of developing understanding relationships in introductory meetings:  

• Communication- how we prefer to be communicated with, including: titles, how we are addressed, pronouns, how much time to respond to texts, voice mails, and emails.  

• Definitions of success, progress, and challenges. –  How will we know if we are making progress, experiencing success, or identifying challenges?   

References 

Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre (n.d.). Glossary. Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. https://www.aclrc.com/issues/anti-racism/cared/glossary/ 

Brittanica. ( 2026). Racism. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism 

Canada Race Relations Foundation. ( 2026). Glossary of Terms. Canada Race Relations Foundation. https://crrf-fcrr.ca/glossary-of-terms/ 

Fisher, J. (2020). Transforming the living legacy of trauma: A workbook for survivors and therapists. PESI Publishing & Media.  

Kania, J., Kramer, M., & Senge, P. (2018). The water of systems change. FSG Reimagining Social Change. www.fsg.org 

Ladson-Billings, G. (2013). Critical race theory- What it is not! In M.Lynn & A.D. Dixson (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 34-47).  Taylor & Francis.  

Mohamed, H., Neale, K., Murray, K., Matthews, L., Persaud, M. ( 2022). Learning from newcomers’ lived experiences of racism: Towards solutions based in equity, diversity, and inclusion for the Toronto North Region. Toronto North Local Immigration Partnership.  

OCASI (n.d.). Anti-racism anti-oppression organizational assessment. Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. https://ocasi.org/ocasi-anti-racism-anti-oppression-policy 

Timperley, H. (2011). Realizing the power of professional learning. Open University Press.  

University of Leicester. (n.d.) Microaggressions and discrimination. https://reportandsupport.le.ac.uk/support/microaggressions-and-discrimination 

Williams, M. T., Skinta, M. D., & Martin-Willett, R. (2021). After Pierce and Sue: A revised racial microaggressions taxonomy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(5), 991-1007. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621994247