Justice | Community Glossary

Social justice- Social justice is fairness as it manifests in society around human rights, access, participation, and equity as it relates to people's race, gender, ability level or socioeconomic status. Progress towards a just society where everyone's human rights are respected, protected, and everyone has equal opportunities. People are not held back by things out of their control like systemic obstacles or discrimination (source here).

Intersectional Social Justice- Social progress that is inclusive of analysis and consideration of people's multiple identities when building policy agendas. "Policy agendas devoid of intersectionality do not allow questions and dialogues that reflect the lives of the people impacted by that policy," (Dr. Bettina Love, We Want to Do More Than Survive, Page 6).

Racial Justice- The systematic fair treatment of people of all races, resulting in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all. Racial justice goes beyond “anti-racism", and refers to deliberately creating processes that will support and sustain people through proactive and preventative measures. Operationalizing racial justice means reimagining and

co-creatinga just and liberated world. It includes:

understanding the history of racism and the system of white supremacy and addressing past harms,
working in right relationship and accountability in an ecosystem (an issue, sector,

or community ecosystem) for collective change,

implementing interventions that use an intersectional analysis and that impact multiple systems,
centering Blackness and building community, cultural, economic, and political power

of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC), and

applying the practice of love along with disruption and resistance to the status quo.

Racial Equity Tools based on the following sources and adjusted

slightly based on committee feedback.

Institutional Racism- Institutional racism refers specifically to the ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. The institutional policies may never mention any racial group, but their effect is to create advantages for whites and oppression and disadvantage for people from groups classified as people of color. Examples include:

Government policies that explicitly restricted the ability of people to get loans to buy or improve their homes in neighborhoods with high concentrations of African Americans (also known as “red-lining”).
City sanitation department policies that concentrate trash transfer stations and other environmental hazards disproportionately in communities of color.

SOURCE: Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building by Maggie Potapchuk, Sally Leiderman, Donna Bivens, and Barbara Major (2005). (Racial Equity Tools)

Cycle of Oppression

Oppression = Power + Prejudice

(Racial Equity Tools)

Oppression- 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. Rita Hardiman and Bailey Jackson state that oppression exists when the

following 4 conditions are found:

the oppressor group has the power to define reality for themselves and others,
the target groups take in and internalize the negative messages about them and end up

cooperating with the oppressors (thinking and acting like them),

genocide, harassment, and discrimination are systematic and institutionalized,

so that individuals are not necessary to keep it going, and

members of both the oppressor and target groups are socialized to play their

roles as normal and correct.