Terms

Submitted by Tlahtoki Xochimeh, Diversity Commission Student Rep.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism occurs when someone attempts to understand a culture by using another culture’s ideas, knowledges, or practices.

Ethnorelativism

Ethnorelativism occurs when someone attempts to understand a culture using that culture’s ideas, knowledges, or practices.

Privilege

Privilege is when a group of people receive unearned advantages from a system of oppression. For example, in the U.S., male/men privilege exists because numerous academic studies have demonstrated that patriarchy has inundated a majority of institutions and interpersonal relationships. Many academic studies have also revealed that other systems of privilege exist in the U.S., such as white privilege, elite privilege, heterosexual privilege, English language privilege, citizenship privilege, thin privilege, etc.

Power

Power is the ability to do something. Privileged power is when a group of people has more of an ability to access resources and opportunities because a system of privilege exists. However, as history has shown, those who are not privileged can also use their power collectively to create social movements that resist systems of privilege. In other words, this power, called liberatory power, is the ability the non-privileged use (to mobilize) in order to dismantle systems of privilege.

Allied behavior

Allied behavior (solidarity) occurs when someone who is privileged in a society works with those who are not privileged in order to dismantle the system of privilege that provides the former with unearned advantages. For instance, those who are white demonstrate allied behavior when they mobilize to dismantle white privilege because they are acting as allies to those who do not benefit from white privilege, namely people of color.

Liberation

Liberation is when dehumanizing and constrictive apparatuses in a society, such as systems of privilege, no longer exist. Put another way, liberation is true and total freedom.