Afrocentric education

An education focusing on or influenced by Africa or cultures of African origin.

My Afrocentric home-school centers my Blackness instead of watering it down
Jordan Wright
Aug. 24, 2023

Black girlboss paradox

Despite high levels of success and leadership, Black women continue to grapple with a disproportionate level of criticism, skepticism, and doubt about their capabilities and achievements.

Claudine Gay and the Black girlboss paradox
Kimberly Bryant
Jan. 9, 2024

Black Progress Index

A Brookings Institution/NAACP data tool showing where Black people are living well, so we can learn how to do that everywhere.

What’s going right about Black life?
Andre M. Perry, Brookings Institution
Sept. 27, 2022

Blood quantum

A measurement of Native American identity based on an erroneous belief that race can be scientifically determined. Racializing Native identity flattens the complexity of it. And for Black people with a claim to Native heritage, Blackness keeps them from being able to be more than one thing at a time.

We cannot repair what we refuse to remember
Caleb Gayle
June 13, 2022

Carceral feminism

Mainstream American feminists’ support for and reliance on the police and prison system as a tool of liberation.

Reckoning with carceral feminism in the fight to end mass incarceration
Aya Gruber
June 27, 2023

Centering the colonized

The idea that colonial power erases the grief of colonized peoples, and to create a better future we must center their voices.

Centering the colonized in a time of mourning
Esther A. Armah
Sept. 18, 2022

Color-blind conservatism

Color-blind ideology claims that any act of recognizing racial differences is equally wrong. From this perspective, affirmative action policies are seen just as morally and legally unacceptable as Jim Crow segregation.

To gay Republicans, racial solidarity is for other people
Neil J. Young
June 14, 2024

Constitutional convention

A method of changing or ratifying a new constitution. The 1787 convention was composed entirely of White men, but a modern convention with an intersectional cross-section of the country could create a new constitution that better serves a healthy multiracial democracy.

The case for overhauling the Constitution
Brandon Hasbrouck
July 5, 2022

Copaganda

A mashup of “cop” and “propaganda” to describe the way narratives hype police by always depicting them as heroes. This framing ignores the history of policing and dismisses alternative ideas for public safety.

Call ‘tough on crime’ what it is: a tool of racial oligarchy
Phillipe Copeland
Nov. 15, 2022

The CROWN Act

A law passed in 19 states prohibiting discrimination based on natural and protective hairstyles, such as Afros, cornrows, or tightly coiled twists in the workplace and at school. A federal version of the act failed to clear the U.S. Congress in the 2022 session.

Public embrace of natural hair offers new twist on civil rights
Jasmine Nichole Cobb
Nov. 15, 2022

Cultural appropriation

The imitation, posing or taking of a racial, religious or social group’s customary beliefs, social forms and material traits.

Surviving the culture vulture’s bite
Frankie Huang
May 8, 2025

The Dissenters

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new liberal minority bloc comprised of Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor aren’t letting the Supreme Court go down without a fight
Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Oct. 13, 2022

Emancipation

The liberation of enslaved Black people in the 19th century and is generally credited to 16th President Abraham Lincoln, except he didn’t. Black people freed themselves.

Lincoln gets way too much credit for freeing enslaved Black people
Kellie Carter Jackson
June 16, 2022

Equity scoring

To make progress real and achievable, governments at all levels should assess proposed policies and budgets for how much they would either promote or undermine racial equity and inclusion (and other forms of equity).

To keep promises of achieving racial equity, let’s start keeping score
Xavier de Souza Briggs, Darrick Hamilton, Richard McGahey, and Andre Perry
Oct. 11, 2022

Ethnic fraud

Describes people who falsely claim racial and ethnic identities as if they were shopping for something more interesting than what they already are. They often reap career benefits and credibility not extended to people with legitimate claims to an identity.

Indigenous identity theft must stop
Audra Simpson
Nov. 17, 2022

Fascism

A populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation, and often race, above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation, and by forcible suppression of opposition. (Merriam Webster)
A technique to gain power by identifying enemies, appealing to the in-group, and smashing truth and replacing it with power. (Vox)

Still think Trump’s not a fascist?
The Emancipator social team
Nov. 1, 2024

Institutional impunity

When institutions get away with doing the wrong thing over and over again without meaningful consequences.

Impunity is a kill switch for racial progress
Xavier de Souza Briggs and Lora-Ellen McKinney
April 24, 2022

Land back

A movement that seeks to return stolen land to Indigenous communities and reestablish their sovereignty.

How land is ‘a fellow victim and hostage’ to racial capitalism
Brea Baker, as told to Jamil Smith
July 16, 2024

Lifetime debt sentence

The financially devastating student loan debt currently strapped on the backs of poor and working-class people.

Stop asking how to pay for free college and account for the unjust, wasteful spending of not doing so
Jalil Mustaffa Bishop, Villanova University
May 3, 2022

Mass disabling event

The widespread effects of long COVID, including chronic fatigue syndrome, on millions of people, disproportionately in communities of color.

We might be over the pandemic, but it’s not over us
V. Jo Hsu
Dec. 1, 2022

Medical brutality

The brutality Black people face in the medical world, through neglect, mistreatment, and protection of healthcare providers against accountability.

We know Black people get killed by the police. Now, let’s talk about brutality in the hospital
Amanda J. Calhoun
May 24, 2022

Mutual aid

A cooperative model of resource-sharing among communities, with no barriers to access.

Community fridges are helping neighbors nourish one another
Alex LaSalvia
Aug. 29, 2024

New illiteracy

A culture of proud refusal to read beyond inflammatory posts and hand-picked passages from books they seek to ban — particularly ones about the lives, history, and experiences of marginalized people.

Books have power; it’s no surprise the powerful want to control them
Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Sept. 19, 2022

Originalism

The bad-faith idea that law, especially the U.S. Constitution, should be followed in the way it was understood when it was written, and that it’s even possible to know a single original intention of a centuries-old document.

‘Originalism is intellectually indefensible,’ says noted historian about right-leaning Supreme Court
Cristian Farias
Oct. 28, 2022

Originalism

The bad-faith idea that law, especially the U.S. Constitution, should be followed in the way it was understood when it was written, and that it’s even possible to know a single original intention of a centuries-old document.

‘Originalism is intellectually indefensible,’ says noted historian about right-leaning Supreme Court
Cristian Farias
Oct. 28, 2022

Other Swing Voter

Young voters who move through election cycles by swinging between choosing Democratic or third-party candidates, or not voting at all.

Enter the Other Swing Voter: the mighty 8%
Lina Saleh and Adaeze Okorie
Oct. 20, 2022

Play in the joints

The idea that not every imposition by the government on religious freedom is a constitutional violation, particularly when the government’s action is supported by a strong public policy interest. The current Supreme Court consistently puts aside this practice to side with conservative Christian activists.

Religious freedom, but not for all
Kimberly Atkins Stohr
July 7, 2022

Reparative spatial justice

A movement that aims to reckon with, repair, and transform the historic and ongoing housing inequities experienced by marginalized Black, Indigenous, and Brown communities.

‘We cannot truly achieve equity without repair’: A look at a movement for housing justice
Rasheedah Phillips & Tina Grandinetti
Oct. 16, 2024

Racial capitalism

A framework that reinterprets the history of capitalism, emphasizing how it has relied upon the exploitation of social and economic value of marginalized racial groups.

How land is ‘a fellow victim and hostage’ to racial capitalism
Brea Baker, as told to Jamil Smith
July 16, 2024

Redwashing

Among many definitions, in this case it’s when people and institutions pretend to ethically operate in the best interests of Indigenous people.

Indigenous identity theft must stop
Audra Simpson
Nov. 17, 2022

Restorative justice

An approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime.

Can restorative justice break the cycle of mass incarceration?
Northeastern University Media Innovation Students
Sept. 19, 2023

Rematriation

Work to restore sacred relationships between Indigenous people and our ancestral land, honoring our matrilineal societies, and in opposition of patriarchal violence and dynamics.

Indigenous land trust empowers women to reclaim and restore ancestral land
Jessica Kutz, The 19th
Dec. 7, 2023

Racism denial

Strategies and language that obscure the reality of racism or minimize its significance.

The art of the denial
Phillipe Copeland
Jan. 3, 2023

Same gender loving

Term coined by activist Cleo Manago as an affirmation of LGBTQ community members of African descent that exists outside traditional White definitions and experiences of being gay and lesbian.

What’s Beyond Pride Month? Black Pride.
Derrick Clifton
July 4, 2022

Soft life era

A colloquial used in Black online spaces describing rest as resistance and a life filled with moments of leisure, gentleness and tenderness.

The real reason Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, sparks outrage
Halimah Abdullah
March 17, 2025

Unbanked

Lacking any access to a checking or savings account, often because of a lack of trust in America’s financial system, or a belief that their money and privacy are at risk.

Black and Brown Americans are chronically underbanked and unbanked. Here’s why that matters
Daryl A. Carter
Sept. 11, 2023

Underbanked

Households that might have savings or checking accounts, but typically depend on alternative financial services like payday lenders, rent-to-own services, and check-cashing businesses.

Black and Brown Americans are chronically underbanked and unbanked. Here’s why that matters
Daryl A. Carter
Sept. 11, 2023

Whitewashing

To alter (something) in a way that favors, features or caters to White people; to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of White people and minimizes or misrepresents that of non-White people

Exclusive: Family of Harriet Tubman ‘angry’ after references removed from National Park Service website
Chandelis Duster
April 8, 2025