Anti-Racism Resources

This guide will provide information about people, groups, and projects dedicated to building inclusive and caring communities. The intention is to provide a starting point for developing a vocabulary to discuss anti-racism through readings and other media and to be better prepared with research and information seeking strategies. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the anti-racist resources available.

The following terms may be useful in understanding racism and how to be an antiracist. This is by no means an all inclusive list. It is just to get you started on forming a vocabulary when having antiracist discussions.

Racist: "One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea."

- How To Be an Antiracist, Chapter 1, by Ibram X. Kendi

Anti-Racist: "One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea."

- How To Be an Antiracist, Chapter 1, by Ibram X. Kendi

Anti-Oppression: the act of educating yourself about oppressive systems and then working to dismantle them. It is the act of fighting back against oppression in your daily life. Anti-Racism is part of the larger Anti-Oppression movement. 

Implicit Bias: Unconscious stereotypes toward an individual or group of people.

Microaggressions: "Unlike some other forms of prejudice and discrimination, the perpetrator of a microaggression may not even be aware that their behavior is hurtful. While microaggressions are sometimes conscious and intentional, on many occasions microaggressions may reflect the perpetrator’s implicit biases about marginalized group members." - What Is A Microaggression? Everyday Insults with Harmful Effects, by Elizabeth Hopper

Structural Racism: "A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist."

- Aspen Institute: Glossary for Understanding the Dismantling Structural Racism/Promoting Racial Equity Analysis

Systemic Racism: "In many ways “systemic racism” and “structural racism” are synonymous. If there is a difference between the terms, it can be said to exist in the fact that a structural racism analysis pays more attention to the historical, cultural and social psychological aspects of our currently racialized society."

- Aspen Institute: Glossary for Understanding the Dismantling Structural Racism/Promoting Racial Equity Analysis

White Privilege: "White privilege, or “historically accumulated white privilege,” as we have come to call it, refers to whites’ historical and contemporary advantages in access to quality education, decent jobs and liveable wages, homeownership, retirement benefits, wealth and so on."

- Aspen Institute: Glossary for Understanding the Dismantling Structural Racism/Promoting Racial Equity Analysis