Implicit Bias

Negative associations people unknowingly hold, and that they express automatically and without conscious awareness. Also known as unconscious or hidden bias. Implicit biases have real-world implications because they can affect individuals’ attitudes and actions, including in ways that counter their explicitly stated beliefs and attitudes. 

Inclusion

The practice of using proactive measures to create an environment where people feel welcomed, respected and valued, and to foster a sense of belonging and engagement. It involves transforming the environment by removing barriers so that groups and individuals have equitable access to opportunities and resources and can achieve their full potential.

Indigenization

A process of naturalizing Indigenous knowledge systems and making them evident to transform spaces, places and hearts. In the context of post-secondary education, this involves bringing Indigenous knowledge and approaches together with Western knowledge systems.

Individual Racism

The beliefs, attitudes and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can be deliberate or not. Examples include telling a racist joke, declining to hire a racialized person because it "doesn't feel right," or accepting the racist status quo as the way things are.

Institutional Racism

The ways institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. These policies may never mention any racial group, but they create advantages for white people, and oppress and disadvantage racialized people. Examples include government policies restricting the ability of people to get mortgages for homes in majority-Black neighbourhoods (known as red-lining) or sanitation polices that concentrate garbage or waste dumping in communities where the majority of residents are racialized.

Internalized Racism

When a racialized group oppressed by racism supports the supremacy and dominance of the politically dominant group in a society by maintaining or participating in the attitudes, behaviors, social structures and ideologies undergirding the politically dominant group’s power. Internalized racism involves four essential and interconnected elements: decision making, resources, standards and naming the problem.

Intersex

A general term for a person born with reproductive and/or sexual anatomy that does not seem to fit the typical binary definitions of male or female. 

Islamophobia

"We understand Islamophobia as a fear and/or hatred of Islam and Muslims (and those perceived as Muslim) that translates into everyday individual, ideological, systemic and intersectional forms of xenophobia and racism. We advocate for an understanding of Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism and discrimination because Islamophobia cannot be understood and defined outside of racism and processes of racialization. Lastly, although we highlight Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism and discrimination, these cannot be understood as operating separately from colonialism, anti-Semitism, religious and cultural discrimination, and other forms of intersectional oppression." (Shaikh & Selby)