Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, religion, physical attractiveness or sexual orientation. Discrimination typically leads to groups being unfairly treated on the basis of perceived statues based on ethnic, racial, gender or religious categories. It involves depriving members of one group of opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group.
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. It is related to regimentation, class, society, and punishment. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination when the injustice does not target and may not directly afflict everyone in society but instead targets or disproportionately impacts specific groups of people.
The matrix of domination or matrix of oppression is a sociological paradigm that explains issues of oppression that deal with race, class, and gender, which, though recognized as different social classifications, are all interconnected. Other forms of classification, such as sexual orientation, religion, or age, apply to this theory as well. Patricia Hill Collins is credited with introducing the theory in her work entitled Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. As the term implies, there are many different ways one might experience domination, facing many different challenges in which one obstacle, such as race, may overlap with other sociological features. Characteristics such as race, age, and sex, may intersectionally affect an individual in extremely different ways, in such simple cases as varying geography, socioeconomic status, or simply throughout time. Other scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color are credited with expanding Collins' work. The matrix of domination is a way for people to acknowledge their privileges in society. How one is able to interact, what social groups one is in, and the networks one establishes are all based on different interconnected classifications.
In social justice theory, internalized oppression is a recognized understanding in which an oppressed group accepts the methods and incorporates the oppressive message of the oppressing group against their own best interest. Rosenwasser (2002) defines it as believing, adopting, accepting, and incorporating the negative beliefs provided by the oppressor as the truth.
Intersectionality is a Feminist analytical framework for understanding how group's and individual's social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, species and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the practical uses of intersectionality.
Covert racism is a form of racial discrimination that is disguised and subtle, rather than public or obvious. Concealed in the fabric of society, covert racism discriminates against individuals through often evasive or seemingly passive methods. Covert, racially biased decisions are often hidden or rationalized with an explanation that society is more willing to accept. These racial biases cause a variety of problems that work to empower the suppressors while diminishing the rights and powers of the oppressed. Covert racism often works subliminally, and much of the discrimination is done subconsciously.
LGBT stereotypes are stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are based on their sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions. Stereotypical perceptions may be acquired through interactions with parents, teachers, peers and mass media, or, more generally, through a lack of firsthand familiarity, resulting in an increased reliance on generalizations.
In sociology, racialization or ethnicization is a political process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such, or the infusion of race in a society's understanding of human behavior. Racialization or ethnicization often arises out of the interaction of a group with a group that it dominates or wants to dominate, and the dominant group ascribes a racial identity to the other group for the purpose of reproducing or continuing their ways of domination, and for reinforcing their social exclusion practices. It distinguishes the dominant group's identity as essentially different from and superior to the non-dominant group for the purpose of oppression. Over time, the racialized and ethnicized group adopts the hegemonic view of race — that races are real, different and unequal in ways that matter to economic, political and social life, an unhealthy norm that strips them of their dignity of full humanity. This systemic tool used for oppression and to induce trauma have been commonly used in varying flexibility throughout the history of imperialism, nationalism, racial and ethnic hierarchies.
Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated." In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both "conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are consistently ranked above people of color." These definitions encompass a wide range of instances, including, but not limited to, belief in negative stereotypes, adaptations to white cultural standards, and thinking that supports the status quo.
Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins is a work of critical theory that discusses the way that race, class and gender intersect to affect the lives of African American men and women in many different ways, but with similar results. The book explores the way that new forms of racism can work to oppress black people, while filling them with messages of liberation.
Microaggression is a term used for commonplace verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups. The term was coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970 to describe insults and dismissals which he regularly witnessed non-black Americans inflicting on African Americans. By the early 21st century, use of the term was applied to the casual disparagement of any socially marginalized group, including LGBT people, poor people, and disabled people. Psychologist Derald Wing Sue defines microaggressions as "brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership". The persons making the comments may be otherwise well-intentioned and unaware of the potential impact of their words.
Black women are women of sub-Saharan African and Afro-diasporic descent, as well as women of Australian Aboriginal and Melanesian descent. The term 'Black' is a racial classification of people, the definition of which has shifted over time and across cultures. As a result, the term 'Black women' describes a wide range of cultural identities with several meanings around the world.
"Shopping while black" is a phrase used for the type of marketplace discrimination that is also called "consumer racial profiling", "consumer racism" or "racial profiling in a retail setting", as it applies to black people. Shopping while black is the experience of being denied service or given poor service because one is black.
The angry black woman stereotype is a racial trope in American society and media that portrays Black American women as inherently ill-mannered and ill-tempered.
Discrimination based on hair texture, also known as textureism, is a form of social injustice, where afro-textured hair or coarse hair types are viewed negatively, often perceived as "unprofessional", "unattractive", or "unclean".
Multiple jeopardy is the theory that the various factors of one's identity that lead to discrimination or oppression, such as gender, class, or race, have a multiplicative effect on the discrimination that person experiences. The term was coined by Dr. Deborah K. King in 1988 to account for the limitations of the double or triple jeopardy models of discrimination, which assert that every unique prejudice has an individual effect on one's status, and that the discrimination one experiences is the additive result of all of these prejudices. Under the model of multiple jeopardy, it is instead believed that these prejudices are interdependent and have a multiplicative relationship; for this reason, the "multiple" in its name refers not only to the various forms of prejudices that factor into one's discrimination but also to the relationship between these prejudices. King used the term in relation to multiple consciousness, or the ability of a victim of multiple forms of discrimination to perceive how those forms work together, to support the validity of the black feminist and other intersectional causes.
Race-based traumatic stress is the traumatic response to stress following a racial encounter. Robert T. Carter's (2007) theory of race-based traumatic stress implies that there are individuals of color who experience racial discrimination as traumatic, and often generate responses similar to post-traumatic stress. Race-based traumatic stress combines theories of stress, trauma and race-based discrimination to describe a particular response to negative racial encounters.
Feminism and racism are highly intertwined concepts in intersectional theory, focusing on the ways in which women of color in the Western World experience both sexism and racism.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), women and racial minorities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Scholars, governments, and scientific organizations from around the world have noted a variety of explanations contributing to this lack of racial diversity, including higher levels of discrimination, implicit bias, microaggressions, chilly climate, lack of role models and mentors, and less academic preparation.
The psychological impact of discrimination on health refers to the cognitive pathways through which discrimination impacts mental and physical health in members of marginalized, subordinate, and low-status groups. Research on the relation between discrimination and health became a topic of interest in the 1990s, when researchers proposed that persisting racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes could potentially be explained by racial/ethnic differences in experiences with discrimination. Although the bulk of the research tend to focus on the interactions between interpersonal discrimination and health, researchers studying discrimination and health in the United States have proposed that institutional discrimination and cultural racism also give rise to conditions that contribute to persisting racial and economic health disparities.
