GLOSSARY
Accessibility: Accessibility is the practice of making information, activities, and/or environments sensible, meaningful, and usable for as many people as possible.
Accommodation: The term “accommodation” may be used to describe an alteration of the environment, curriculum format, or equipment that allows an individual with a disability to gain access to content and/or complete assigned tasks.
Ally: A person in a dominant position of power actively working in solidarity with individuals that do not hold that same power, or they do not share a social identity with, to end oppressive systems and practices. In the context of racial justice, allyship often refers to White people working to end the systemic oppression of people of colour.
Anti-oppression: is the work of actively challenging and removing oppression perpetuated by power inequalities in society; both systemic oppression and individual expressions of oppression.
Anti-racist: In 2019 Ibram X Kendi wrote” How to be an antiracist”. This book popularized this term. Kendi’s definition does not focus on an individual person being “racist or anti-racist” but rather on actions, policy and structures. Anyone can have actions that are anti-racist, if these actions are working against racist power structures and policies.
Cultural Fluency: Is the ability to effectively interact with people from different cultures, racial, and ethnic groups. It includes an awareness of how to properly respond to differences in communication and conflict as well as the appropriate application of respect, empathy, flexibility, patience, interests, curiosity, openness, the willingness to suspend judgement, tolerance for ambiguity, and a sense of humour.
Disability Justice framework: There are many definitions and philosophies around Disability Justice. Here is one that resonates with us.
“A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential, that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met.”
PATTY BERNE
Intersectionality: Intersectionality is a framework that describes how our overlapping social identities relate to social structures of racism and oppression. Intersectionality merges many identity markers, including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, and more, to create a more truthful and complex identity.
For example, a queer black woman may experience the world on the basis of her sexuality, gender, and race — a unique experience based on how those identities intersect in her life. Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?
Implicit Bias: Implicit bias, also known as implicit prejudice or implicit attitude, is a negative attitude, of which one is not consciously aware.
Historically Excluded: Groups of people and communities that experience discrimination, harassment, oppression, and exclusion because of unequal power dynamics and historically oppressive power structures.
Lived Experience: the “experts” on any topic are the people who have directly lived through the experience.
Oppression: is the use of power or privilege by a socially, politically, economically, or culturally dominant group (or groups) to disempower (take away or reduce power), marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category.
Privilege: unearned power, benefits, advantages, access and/or opportunities that exist for members of the dominant group(s) in society. It can also refer to the relative privilege of one group compared to another. Privilege implies that wherever there is a system of oppression (such as capitalism, patriarchy, or white supremacy) there is an oppressed group and also a privileged group, who benefit from the oppressions that this system puts in place. Privilege and power are closely related: privilege often gives a person or group power over others.
Systemic Oppression: consists of practice, policies, laws and standards that disadvantage a particular group or category of people.
