Whether you’re a seasoned racial justice activist in the front lines of every protest or someone who’s in the beginning steps of racial literacy, we can all take time to evaluate the terminology we use when talking about race. In Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter, authors Candis Watts Smith, an associate professor at Penn State University, and Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, an assistant professor at George Mason University, provide a glossary of racial justice terms to help advocates understand the double edge some of these words can present.

Watts Smith said the inspiration for the glossary came from her own students. She noticed two groups of students in her classes. Those wanting not to be racist, but lacking the knowledge to take steps in the right direction, and those she referred to as “woker than thou.” These were students who knew the lingo, but weren’t necessarily using words in a nuanced way.

“We wanted to build a tool kit for people on both sides of this knowledge gap,” Watts Smith said. “On one hand, people who are newcomers can have some information to facilitate a conversation in a more educated way, but also to challenge those who are very strict in their understanding.”

Here are some of the words listed in their glossary. These words fall under categories of tools of liberation—words that enhance the lives of others—and tools of oppression—ideas used to exploit or shame people based on race. No matter what level racial justice advocate you are, Watts Smith and Lopez Bunyasi say education is vital when staying woke.

antiracism

1. The practice of dismantling a system marked by white supremacy and anti-Black racism through deliberate action

2. A theory that explains and exposes multiple forms of racism: overt and covert, interpersonal and institutional, historical and present day, persistent and nascent

Black girl magic

1. The recognition of the beauty, ability, resourcefulness, and perseverance of Black women in a society marked by anti-Black sexism

2. An effort to highlight the role of Black women in all aspects of U.S. life

synonyms: #BlackGirlMagic, #ProfessionalBlackGirl

antonym: misogynoir

colorblind racism

1. The worldview that suggests that since race should not matter, it does not matter

2. An ideology that insists that everyone be treated without regard to race, accompanied by a denial of the causes and consequences of racism

co-optation

1. Taking an idea, disassembling it, reassembling it with original pieces as well as retrofitted ones; giving the modified thing a different name than the original and then claiming originality

2. Appropriation; falsely claiming rights to or innovation of something as one’s own

colorism

A practice whereby privileges and disadvantages are systematically doled out on the basis of skin color, with a disproportionate amount of advantage provided to lighter-skinned people

synonym: light-skin privilege

culture of poverty

1. The notion that poor and working-class people are poor because they do not know how to work, do not have the motivation to work, or are too dependent on public assistance

2. An idea that poverty is intergenerational because poverty is (psychologically) pathological and cyclical

dehumanization

1. The notion that some people are less than human

2. The routine association of Blacks with demons and animals, such as apes

dog whistle politics

Coded racial appeals

epistemology of ignorance

1. A militant, aggressive willingness to not know

2. A process of knowing designed to produce not knowing about white privilege and white supremacy

false equivalence

1. A logical fallacy, whereby two opposing sides of an argument are deemed equivalent when they actually are not

2. A reliance on feeble similarities

in an attempt to make moot

the more important

observation and effect

of the glaring differences

intersectionality

1. A theory that highlights the heterogeneity of privileges and layers of oppression that individuals within a group may experience

2. A paradigm, rooted in the analysis of Black women’s experiences, that reveals that Black women are “doubly bound,” due to overlapping layers of oppressions, including racism and sexism; this paradigm asserts that race constructs the way women experience gender, and gender influences how women experience race

microaggression

1. Small, subtle, pernicious acts of racism

2. Brief remarks, vague insults, casual dismissals, and nonverbal exchanges that serve to slight a person due to the person’s race

antonym: antiracism

nationalism

1. As it relates to nation-states, a type of attachment to one’s country that is marked by chauvinism and a sense of superiority over others

2. As it relates to broader notions of “nation”—including the conception of a racial or ethnic group as a type of nation—an ideology that emphasizes in-group solidarity and prioritization and, in some cases, political autonomy

racism

1. A feature of a society, whereby patterns of public policy, institutions, dominant ideologies, and popular representations serve to perpetuate social, political, and economic inequities between racial groups

2. The array of anti-Black practices, policies, and ever-perpetuated inequalities that maintain white privilege and power

reverse discrimination

There. Is. No. Such. Thing.

respectability politics

An ideology based on the notion that by presenting oneself in the way that is pleasing to members of the dominant group, one will be able to assuage their fears about one (and one’s group), and as a consequence, racial animus will dissipate among white Americans

white fragility

White fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.

white privilege

1. An advantage, good, or resource that people with ascribed white racial identities receive and/or have greater access to and that people with ascribed nonwhite racial identities are denied and/or have less access to, primarily as a consequence of their ascribed racial identity and not because of what they do or do not do as individuals

2. A condition of whiteness, whereby one is not, nor needs to be, cognizant of the racial dynamics that systematically benefit white people and disadvantage people of color

white supremacy

1. The systematic provision of political, social, economic, and psychological benefits and advantages to whites, alongside the systematic provision of burdens and disadvantages to people who are not white

2. A set of norms and expectations predicated on white habits, or the preferences, tastes, emotions, and perceptions of white Americans

3. The belief that white people are inherently superior to people of color and should dominate over people of color

synonyms: racialized social system, whiteness

antonym: antiracism