Washington State Glossary for Inclusive & Equitable Workplaces
Welcome to the 4th version of the Glossary for Inclusive & Equitable Workplaces, previously known as the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging glossary!
The intent of this glossary is to provide state employees with a compilation of equity-related terms and their meanings. When we have a shared vocabulary and agree on the meaning of the words we use, we are better able to collaborate across departments, teams, and the communities that we serve.
Words carry meaning, power, and impact. It is important that we understand the meanings, recognize the power, and demonstrate reflection, continual learning, and accountability for the impact of the words we use in Washington State government. It is also important to understand that the human beings who are educating us about these terms are living the identities and experiences described in this glossary.
Because people are continually evolving, the words we use to describe them need to evolve as well. This resource is meant to support the work of improving access, advancing equity, and eliminating systemic racism and other forms of oppression from the work we do. This is not meant to serve as a primary resource in any specialized area such as law, medicine, or academia.
Thank you to the Washington State Business Resource Groups, the Washington State DEI Council Glossary Workgroup, The Department of Health, Department of Enterprise Services, Office of Equity, OFM Communications for your hard work and dedication to this body of work. The work that was poured into this version will directly impact those who experience disparities, exclusion, and systemic oppression in the workplace. Thanks to your vital contribution to this work our state will have a practical resource guiding us to maintain a growth mindset while affirming and embodying diversity, equity, inclusion, antiracism, and belonging every step of the way.
You may request a Glossary Edit if you would like a term added to or a definition edited in this glossary. Please note that the review committee meets quarterly to review these submissions and is committed to the shared-power process, so these edits make take several months to research and to respond to.
Term |
Definition |
|---|---|
| Race |
A social construct that divides people into smaller social groups based on characteristics, most typically skin color. Racial categories were socially constructed, with artificially created whiteness as one of the elements of the dominant culture. Race was created to concentrate power and advantage people who are defined as white and justify dominance over non-white people. The idea of race has become embedded in our identities, institutions, and culture, and influences life opportunities, outcomes, and experiences. Racial categories change based on the political convenience of the dominant society at a given period of time. See Nationality22, National Origin23, Color24, Colorism25, and Ethnicity26.
|
| Race Equity |
The vision or existence of a community, society, or world in which race or color does not predict the amount and quality of opportunities, services, and benefits. The condition where one’s race identity has no influence on how one fares in society. |
| Racialization |
The act of giving a racial character to someone or something. The process of categorizing, marginalizing, or regarding according to race. |
| Racism |
A form of prejudice that assumes that the members of racial categories have distinctive characteristics and that these differences result in some racial groups being inferior to others. Racism generally includes negative emotional reactions to members of the group, acceptance of negative stereotypes, and racial discrimination against individuals; in some cases, it leads to violence. • Cultural Racism – Comprises the cumulative effects of a racialized worldview, based on belief in essential racial differences that favor the dominant racial group over others. These effects are suffused throughout the culture via institutional structures, ideological beliefs, and personal everyday actions of people in the culture, and these effects are passed on from generation to generation. • Institutional Racism – Those established laws, customs, and practices which systemically reflect and produce racial inequities in American society. If racist consequences accrue to institutional laws, customs, or practices, the institution is racist whether or not the individuals maintaining those practices have racist intentions. Institutional racism can be either overt or covert and either intentional or unintentional. • Individual Racism – One who considers that black people as a group (or other human groups defined by essential racial characteristics) are inferior to whites because of physical (i.e., genotypical and phenotypical) traits. They further believe that these physical traits are determinants of social behavior and of moral and intellectual qualities and ultimately presume that this inferiority is a legitimate basis for that group’s inferior social treatment. An important consideration is that all judgments of superiority are based on the corresponding traits of white people as norms of comparison. • Dynamic Model of Structural Racism – A diagram of properties that illustrates how cultural, institutional, and individual racism are connected. Separated into three hierarchical relationships, the model expresses how institutions develop as a manifestation of cultural views, then institutions do the work of the culture to racially socialize individuals. The individuals then “teach” and “learn” from the institutions what the culture believes should be implicitly believed or revealed. |
| Relational Partnership |
Empathy-centered collaboration between government and people groups who have been excluded and marginalized by government decisions and actions... to undo harm and advance pro-equity anti-racism (PEAR) outcomes. |
| Respect |
A feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, valued, and should be treated in a dignified way.
|
