Different Colored Silhouettes of diverse peoples

Racial Literacy & Awareness

  • Multi-colored dots in a square pattern

    The Charta der Vielfalt promotes the recognition, appreciation and integration of diversity in business culture. When organisations make use of their employees’ diversity, they boost their success and are attractive employers.

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  • A Butterfly on Green Grass

    “I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sexes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression,” wrote Black feminist poet Audre Lorde. Lorde’s imprint on intersectionality is unmistakable. Most importantly, Lorde offers a liberatory and intersectional framework to social justice activism.

    From the perspective of law, it was civil rights attorney Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw who developed and applied the theory of intersectionality

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  • Orange speaking bubble shapes on a dark blue gradient background

    Language is a powerful tool for building inclusion and exclusion at work. It can be used to create a sense of being valued, respected and one of the team or of being under-valued, disrespected, and an ‘outsider’.

    Inclusive language enables a diversity of people (e.g. different ages, cultures, genders) to feel valued and respected and able to contribute their talents to drive organisational performance.

    DCA has developed a new WordsAtWork* campaign for workplaces to show how inclusive language can improve workplace culture and drive productivity.

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  • 2 People Talking at an event

    A commitment to inclusion ensures that MCW’s diversity is a source of strength in achieving excellence in our missions and fostering the health of the local and global communities we serve. But to benefit from our diversity, we need a shared language that helps us integrate our differences and thrive through the energy and innovation that we co-create. This glossary provides a set of shared definitions and concepts aligned with MCW institutional and school strategies, our formal codes for our treatment of each other, and our policies that codify our practices.

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  • Stone wall and iron lampost on blue background

    This glossary of terms was formatted and adapted by the Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging using several resources and consulting with members of our community and the DIB Leadership Council. This is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of terminology used in our conversations about diversity and equity. Because language is a reflection of the lived experience, many of these words and terms will continue to evolve as the lived experience evolves. Even so, it is still useful to have a reference that provides basic working definitions to facilitate shared discussions.

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  • Close up of diverse faces with colorful overlays

    Kimberlé Crenshaw developed the framework of intersectionality in 1989 to explore how race, class, gender and other socio-political identities are interwoven, rather than existing as separate, isolated influences on people and their agency in the world. Essentially, we are limited in our thinking and offering tools for change if we analyze and create solutions wrapped up in the advantages or disadvantages of one identity or another.

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  • As coaches, educating oneself on systematic racism, and the effects it has on races in America is crucial when it comes to being able to accurately and respectfully interact with diverse racial groups in America.

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  • Book Cover. Black background. Blue and Light Yellow Letters. Racism in the Modern World

    Emphasizing the global nature of racism, this volume brings together historians from various regional specializations to explore this phenomenon from comparative and transnational perspectives. The essays shed light on how racial ideologies and practices developed, changed, and spread in Europe, Asia, the Near East, Australia, and Africa, focusing on processes of transfer, exchange, appropriation, and adaptation. To what extent, for example, were racial beliefs of Western origin? Did similar belief systems emerge in non-Western societies independently of Western influence? And how did these societies adopt and adapt Western racial beliefs once they were exposed to them? Up to this point, the few monographs or edited collections that exist only provide students of the history of racism with tentative answers to these questions....

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  • Book Cover. Dark brown background. Two hands

    Are antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn’t racism appear in Europe before the fourteenth century, and why did it flourish as never before in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Why did the twentieth century see institutionalized racism in its most extreme forms? Why are egalitarian societies particularly susceptible to virulent racism? What do apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the American South under Jim Crow have in common? How did the Holocaust advance civil rights in the United States?...

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  • Old photo of Matilda McCrear

    Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million people were kidnapped from Africa and sent to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade. Only 10.7 million survived the harrowing two month journey. Comprehending the sheer scale of this forced migration—and slavery’s subsequent spread across the country via interregional trade—can be a daunting task, but as historian Leslie Harris told Smithsonian’s Amy Crawford earlier this year, framing “these big concepts in terms of individual lives … can [help you] better understand what these things mean.”

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  • Book Cover: Sway

    Dr Uncovers the science behind our "unintentional" biases using real world stories underpinned by scientific theories and research. Experiments have shown that our brains categorize people by race in less than one-tenth of a second, about 50 milliseconds before determining sex. This means that we are labeling people by race and associating certain characteristics to them without even hearing them speak or getting to know them. This subtle cognitive process starts in the amygdala, the area of the brain associated with strong emotions....

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  • Impressive 3d rendering of a wall made of standard black and white unisex people dressed in raincoats and hoods. They look soulless and thought provoking.

    The purpose of this paper is to outline a thematic approach to the clinical treatment of clients who have experienced racial trauma. Using the literature on trauma and racist incidents, the authors explore the following counseling themes for trauma treatment: acknowledge, share, safety and self-care, grieve, shame and self-blame/internalized racism, anger, coping strategies, and resistance strategies. The authors then provide a case study of a Native American client. In addition, potential buffers to the traumatizing impact of racist incidents are provided. In conclusion, the importance of counselor competence is explored. Limitations of the proposed themes are described and a call for further examination of counseling responses to racist-incident-based trauma is made.

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  • Project Implicit Logo.

    Project Implicit is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and international collaborative of researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition.

    Project Implicit was founded in 1998 by three scientists – Dr. Tony Greenwald (University of Washington), Dr. Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University), and Dr. Brian Nosek (University of Virginia). Project Implicit Health (formerly Project Implicit Mental Health) launched in 2011 and is led by Dr. Bethany Teachman (University of Virginia) and Dr. Matt Nock (Harvard University).

    The mission of Project Implicit is to educate the public about bias and to provide a “virtual laboratory” for collecting data on the internet. Project Implicit scientists produce high-impact research that forms the basis of our scientific knowledge about bias and disparities.

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  • Watercolor abstract faces. Diversity concept banner

    People often say that we are not born racist, however the truth is actually more complicated: new-born infants exhibit no preference for faces of various ethnic groups, however from the age of 3 months, infants begin to take longer to scan faces – indicating that they are thinking more about appearances – and exhibit a preference for faces of their parents’ (and own) ethnic group(s)4. These findings imply that while we may not be born racist, our perceptions of ethnic differences are learned during early development as a result of exposure to own- versus other-race faces.

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  • Squares of multi-cultural people

    Today’s dose expands on our recent dose on the topic of bias, expanding on the work of American scientist Jennifer Eberhardt, to add the work of the UK scientist - Pragya Agarwal, explored in her June 2020 book titled: Sway. The integration of scientific findings by both scientists into a better understanding of the nature of bias is profound. Their scientific translations inspire us all to develop more awareness of our biases, and set our biases aside in order to treat every person as unique and valuable. Let’s start with awareness and understanding of five universal features of bias.

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  • Chalkboard with words: Unconscious Bias

    To simplify the complexity of human experience, the brain categorizes things, grouping them together, which reduces sensitivity to differences. These categories become beliefs and stereotypes. The unconscious associations with a stereotype become bias.

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  • Powerpoint slide. Two triangles and a wavy line

    Neuroscience research has begun to ‘connect the dots’ on how the brain works and how brain functioning supports both conscious and unconscious thought processes.  With this newfound knowledge, we are beginning to understand the power of unconscious bias and its impact on behavior, decision-making and interpersonal dynamics. It is important for coaches to be knowledgeable about unconscious bias, since its impact—and fallout—is part of our daily life.   In this highly interactive webinar, Dr. Davidovich will teach us about the two basic systems that link biases to decision making, and how unconscious bias operates in the brain. He will share what coaches need to know to identify and work on the gap between a client’s intentions – and their actual behavior.  In this session, you will learn:...

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  • Screenshot of Video still of Jennifer L. Eberhardt

    Our brains create categories to make sense of the world, recognize patterns and make quick decisions. But this ability to categorize also exacts a heavy toll in the form of unconscious bias. In this powerful talk, psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt explores how our biases unfairly target Black people at all levels of society -- from schools and social media to policing and criminal justice -- and discusses how creating points of friction can help us actively interrupt and address this troubling problem.

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  • Blue and White Marbled pattern

    In a context of wide media attention to public debates about the social, political and epistemic entitlements of different groups within Australian society, an understanding of the rhetorical resources and the discursive work done by differing constructions of 'race', has become an important local issue. This article examines data from discussions between two groups of (non-indigenous) university students on a range of contemporary issues concerning race relations in Australia. Participants drew on four common discursive themes when discussing Aboriginal people....

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  • Logo for The Centre for Multicultural Studies

    Since the second world war, significant changes have come about in senses of Australian identity and historical self-consciousness. The nature and extent of these changes can be seen in an analysis of racism and conceptions of culture, particularly in the definition of ‘us’ and the ‘them’ of history: how ‘we’ define ourselves through a delineation of ‘others’ who are different.

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  • Photo of Ibram X Kendi

    During our investigation to find materials that would allow for further research into the historical impact of slavery in the United States, this selection from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi was found. The list provides a broad historical sweep and includes literature related to health outcomes and biology.

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  • Colorful swirls on the right side of a blue background

    Social justice advocacy has entered a new era. Rising expectations brought about by the remarkable shift in the national political arena have heightened the need to rethink standard approaches to social justice advocacy. One of the most significant aspects of current social justice practice that warrants rethinking, is the dominance of a particular orientation that disaggregates social problems into discrete challenges facing specific groups. These groups are often defined in mutually exclusive ways, generating artificial distinctions and sometimes conflicting agendas.

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