Justice for Bryant Resources

"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group"

Read the full essay here.

Common Community Agreements established at Justice for Bryant Community Assemblies (2020).

• Depersonalize, speak your truth·      

• Step Up, Step back·      

• Acknowledge Lived Experience; Experience is Priority     

• Be in a Safe, Brave Zone and Safe, Brave Space      

• Stories stay, lessons leave      

• Listening without interrupting   

• Recognize privilege     

• Clarify jargon and abbreviations      

• Be mindful of language

• Request to have courageous conversations    

• Snaps

• Acknowledge impact (not just my intentions)

• Lean into discomfort

Anti-Racism Terms established at Justice for Bryant Community Assemblies (2020):

Anti-Racist — someone who engages in lifelong active internal and external work against the beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism

Cognitive Dissonance — the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes,especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. Example: white people ignoring ALL of the evidence that suggests institutions such as policing were designed to uphold racial poverty, not public safety, leading to white mainstream America still pushing reform and “a few bad apples” narrative.

Disinvestment — urban planning process in which a city or town or other municipal entity decides to abandon or neglect an area.

Displacement — when poor people and/or members of a marginalized racial or ethnic group who were longtime residents of neighborhoods are pushed out by gentrification.

Gentrification — a process of neighborhood change that includes economic change in a historically disinvested neighborhood by means of real estate investment and new higher-income residents moving in, as well as demographic change, not only in terms of income level, but also in terms of changes in the education level or racial make-up of residents.

Internalized Racial Oppression — The acceptance of and acting out of an inferior definition of self, given by the oppressor, is rooted in the historical designation of one’s race. Over many generations, this process of disempowerment and disenfranchisement expresses itself in self-defeating behaviors.

Internalized Racial Superiority — The acceptance of and acting out of a superior definition is rooted in the historical designation of one’s race. Over many generations, this process of empowerment and access expresses itself as unearned privileges, access to institutional power and invisible advantages based upon race.

Institutional Racism —  form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. It can lead to such issues as genocide as well as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education, among other issues. [1]

Power — the ability to act or not act

Racial Equity — when race no longer determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes; when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live. As a process, we apply racial equity when those most impacted by structural racial inequity are meaningfully involved in the creation and implementation of the institutional policies and practices that impact their lives.

Racism — Race Prejudice + Power.  Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another and has the power to enforce that belief.

Racist — someone who benefits in a society that privileges white people and whiteness, and has power from race-based ideas that are considered normal throughout our media, culture, social systems, and institutions 

Reparations — political justice movement and action that payments and atonements should be paid to African Americans for U.S. slavery—and generations of structural systems enacted to steal wealth from black communities — and to repair the racial wealth and power divide.

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.

“White Flight” — White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States.

White Fragility — discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice.

White Privilege — inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice kept in place by historic, enduring racism and biases.

White Supremacy — the belief and practice that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society.