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Anti-Racism Learning Toolkit

A starting point to better understand racism and take action.

About Race and Racism

Audre Lorde

According to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CCRF): 

When defining Race, "modern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, that is, race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created, often by socially dominant groups, to establish meaning in a social context. This often involves the subjugation of groups defined as racially inferior, as in the one-drop rule used in the 19th-century United States to exclude those with any amount of African ancestry from the dominant racial grouping, defined as 'white'. Such racial identities reflect the cultural attitudes of imperial powers dominant during the age of European colonial expansion. This view rejects the notion that race is biologically defined."

Racialization is "the process through which groups come to be socially constructed as races, based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, language, economics, religion, culture, politics, etc."

Racism is "a belief that one group is superior to others performed through any individual action, or institutional practice which treats people differently because of their colour or ethnicity. This distinction is often used to justify discrimination."

Systemic Racism is "an interlocking and reciprocal relationship between the individual, institutional and structural levels which function as a system of racism. These various levels of racism operate together in a lockstep model and function together as whole system. These levels are:

  • Individual (within interactions between people)
  • Institutional (within institutions and systems of power)
  • Structural or societal (among institutional and across society)"

Anti-Racism is "an active and consistent process of change to eliminate individual, institutional and systemic racism."

Source: CRRF Glossary of Terms

Picture: Audre Lorde (Wikimedia Commons). Read about activist Audre Lorde.

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