Terms You Should Know- Coming soon. Learning is good for you.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS.

Assimilation: means being absorbed into the cultural tradition of the dominant society and consequently losing one’s historical identity. This is in contrast to acculturation in which there is an adaptation to a different culture but retention of original identity (Garcia & Van Soest, 2006; Pinderhughes, 1989; Potapchuk et al., 2005; Robbins, Chatterjee, & Canda, 1998; Soto, 2004; Thompson & Neville, 1999). 

Cultural Appropriation: (From wikipedia) Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It denotes acculturation or assimilation, but often connotes a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture.[1][2] It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, language, or social behavior. These elements, once removed from their indigenous cultural contexts, may take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held. Or, they may be stripped of meaning altogether.

The term cultural appropriation can have a negative connotation. It generally is applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to the appropriating culture; or, when there are other issues involved, such as a history of ethnic or racial conflict between the two groups.Cultural and racial theorist, George Lipsitz, outlined this concept of cultural appropriation in his seminal term “strategic anti-essentialism”. Strategic anti-essentialism is defined as the calculated use of a cultural form, outside of your own, to define yourself or your group. Strategic anti-essentialism can be seen both in minority cultures and majority cultures, and are not confined to only the appropriation of the other. For example, the American band Redbone, comprised of founding members of Mexican heritage, essentialized their group as belonging to the
Native American tradition, and are known for their famous songs in support of the American Indian Movement “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” and “Custer Had It Coming”. However, as Lipsitz argues, when the majority culture attempts to strategically anti-essentialize themselves by appropriating a minority culture, they must take great care to recognize the specific socio-historical circumstances and significance of these cultural forms so as not the perpetuate the already existing, majority vs. minority, unequal power relations.

Discrimination: is often codified by laws, regulations, and rules. People experience oppression when they are deprived of human rights or dignity and are (or feel) powerless to do anything about it. Sometimes the negative act is in the form of exclusion, in which people are denied the opportunity to participate in a certain right, benefit, or privilege. Sometimes the negative act is in the form of marginalization, in which people find that they are on the fringe of political, social, or economic consciousness. That sense of invisibility results in decisions being made by those in power that may be harmful simply because the needs were not considered.

Ethnocentrism: is the tendency to automatically interpret reality from one’s own perspective as normative and or superior. Other groups are judged in relative to one’s own cultural beliefs (without cultural relativism), thus dismissing other perspectives as inferior or insignificant.

Eurocentrism: is a belief or position that asserts the moral or evolutionary superiority of Anglo-European culture as the standard by which others are measured and evaluated and found to be deficient (Fleras and Kunz).

Internalized racism: In contrast to white privilege, internalized racism is the development of ideas, beliefs, actions, and behaviors that support or collude with racism against oneself. It is the support of the supremacy and dominance of the dominant group through participation in the set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and ideologies that undergirds the dominating group’s power and privilege and limits the oppressed group’s own advantages (Potapchuk et al, 2005; Tatum, 1997).

Orientalism:

“For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away.”

– Edward Said

The idea behind Orientalism, according to Edward Said, is that the West has created a dichotomy between the romantic, exoticized notion of “the Orient,” and the reality of “the East.” Asia and the Middle East are viewed through a prism of racism and prejudice; they are constructed as a singular, monolithic race that is backwards, and without culture and history. In order to enlighten the primitive societies, (“modernize”) the West has created culture, history and a future for them. The vantage point from here is from “the West,” versus “the Other.”

Through Orientalism, women are objectified, their nationalities reduced to the “uncivilized,” and their identities to static, gender tropes. Asian women, for example- meaning women from anywhere within the continent of Asia- are products of this mysterious “Orient.” Western culture, as noted, depicts the “Orient,” as a savage, patriarchal land of harems, samurai and geishas. Elements from differing cultures around Asia are obscured and exoticized. 

Otherizing: The process by which minority women and men are portrayed as people who are removed in time, remote in space and marginal to society. They are considered unbefitting of equal treatment because of their inferiority or irrelevance. Also “othered” or “othering.”

Prejudice: is the negative (or positive/idealized) attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs about an entire category of people formed without full knowledge or examination of the facts. And discrimination is acting on the basis of prejudice.

Racism is the practice of discrimination and prejudice based on racial classification supported by the power to enforce that prejudice.

Three subtle types of racism are captured in the concepts of symbolic racism, aversive racism, and micro-inequities.

a) Aversive racism: is another subtle form of prejudice. People who engage in the practice see themselves as non-racists, but they will do racist things, sometimes unintentionally, or they will avoid people without overt racist intent. What they believe about themselves and will attest to is the importance of fairness, equality, and justice, but because they have been exposed to the ever-present societal racism just by living in the United States, they will reflect it in their conduct (Durrheim & Dixon, 2004; Tatum, 1997).

b) Symbolic racism: is expressed by those who may or may not perceive themselves as racist, but justify their negative judgment of others by asserting that the others do not abide by traditional values of the dominant group. People can perceive themselves as being fair and practicing equality by holding forth certain values, such as “individualism” or “work ethic” or “self-reliance,” and take negative action because the focal group does not share those values. So they perceive themselves as operating based on certain “objective” standards or “universal truths” rather than in opposition to the group based on their race (Durrheim & Dixon, 2004).

c) Micro-inequities: Finally, good people can do bad things to others in ways for which there is no formal grievance, but still have negative (sometimes unintentionally) effect. This refers to micro- aggressions or micro-inequities. Micro-inequities are “those tiny, damaging characteristics of an environment, as these characteristics affect a person not of that environment. They are the comments, the work assignments, the tone of voice, the failure of acknowledgement in meetings or social gatherings. These are not actionable violations of law or policies, but they are clear, subtle indicators of lack of respect by virtue of membership in a group” (Rowe, 1990). These are forms of racism that as members of this society we all commit. People of color may commit these acts or maintain these attitudes against other people of color. The charge is to become able to recognize them and move ourselves and others beyond them to facilitate systemic change.

Shadism: is a form of internalized, racial “self-hatred.” It is a legacy of cultural imperialism, and  is a form of skin tone bias that identifies groups and individuals on the basis of their degree of pigmentation. It is an evaluation of people that registers traits such as skin color, hair, and facial features in order to construct racially charged social hierarchies.

NOTE FOR SHADISM: This is mostly where you would differentiate racism from prejudice and xenophobia. Yes, you can be prejudiced and a “nonwhite minority,” but using the term “racism” is incorrect. There are also histories of obsessions with skin lightening due to nobility and poverty dichotomies, class issues- but I wouldn’t say the issues stray too far from each other

White privilege: is one issue that must be confronted as a precondition to releasing the energy required to successfully challenge institutional racism.is the collection of benefits based on belonging to a group perceived to be white, when the same or similar benefits are denied to members of other groups. It is the benefit of access to resources and social rewards and the power to shape the norms and values of society that white people receive, unconsciously or consciously, by virtue of their skin color (Kivel, 2002; McIntosh,1988; Potapchuk et al., 2005;)

Yellowface: at its core, is not only the practice of applying prostheses or paint to simulate a crude idea of what “Asians” look like; it is non-Asian bodies (usually white) controlling what it means to be Asian on screen and stage, particularly in lead/major roles. Tied to blackface and the portrayal of African Americans on the stage by whites in the nineteenth century, the term yellowface appears as early as the 1950s to describe the continuation in film of having white actors playing major Asian and Asian American roles and the grouping together of all makeup technologies used to make one look “Asian.”