Working Dictionary
These are working definitions, and explanations for different words and ideas related to identity, power and violence. They are intended for kids as young as preschool. These are not correct or singular. They are just suggestions amidst many ways to talk about this complex ideas. Please leave a comment if you have additions or edits!!
culture: we get a lot of messages
injustice: unfairness
structure: small parts working together
skin color: dark brown, light brown, tan, light tan
melanin: melanin: tiny grains* (like sand) of color in our skin that can be still or very busy (the busier melanin is, the darker brown the skin) (*definition by Katie Kissinger in All the Colors we are)
hoarding power: not sharing
physical violence: hurting people’s bodies
murder or killing: making someone’s body stop working* (*definition by Jill MacFarlane)
consent: asking if something is okay before you do it
equality: everyone gets the same thing
equity: everyone gets what they need* (which may not be the same as other people) (*based on definition of fairness from Rick Riordan)
power: when one person or group can make what they want more important than what other people need.* (*based on a definition by Kiese Laymon)
meritocracy: the idea that we have things based on how hard we work and how smart we are (which isn’t true)
kidnapping: taking people’s bodies without asking
colonization: stealing land that doesn’t belong to you, not sharing, hurting or killing the people who had taken care of the land for thousands of years
genocide: using guns and germs to make MANY MANY people’s body stop working
police brutality: when people who chose to be police officers hurt other people’s bodies and feelings
Institutional or systemic racism:
Everyone has things their body needs to be safe and healthy—like a safe place to live, clean water, healthy food, doctors if they get sick, safe ways to move their body from one place to another, clean air to breath, people being safe with our bodies. Systemic racism means that the country is set up so its HARDER for people with brown skin to get their needs met than people with light tan skin.
For example, white people often:
get paid more money for doing the same amount of work as people with brown skin
live in places where there are more playgrounds and food stores
go to schools with more books and computers and less police
are able to go to the doctor and have the doctor listen to them and help them get better
For example, people with brown skin, especially people who are called Black people or people who are indigenous to this land:
are more likely be sent to jail or be pulled over by the police (for doing the same things white people do)
are more likely to be kicked out of school (for doing the same thing white people do)
are more likely to live in places where the air is dangerous to breathe or the water is dangerous to drink
aren’t given as many jobs, even if they would be really good at the job
This is unfair and we must work together to change this!
History of racism:
Lies were told about people with brown skin to explain why people with light tan skin made them work without paying them any money. Making people, who are bought and sold, work without paying them money is called slavery. Even though people with brown skin now usually get paid money to work, a lot of people with light tan skin, called white people, still tell those lies. This can make it hard for people with brown skin to get important things, like jobs, or schools with enough books or computers.
Melanin:
"In our skin there are tiny grains of coloring called melanin. You can't see the tiny melanin grains buy everyone has melanin in their skin..if you have dark skin the melanin in your body is very active, if you have light skin, the melanin in your body is no very busy." -from All the Colors We Are by Katie Kissinger
Skin Color:
"We get our skin color in three different ways: from our parents and relatives who lived long ago call ancestors, from the sun, and from something called melanin." --from All the Colors We Are by Katie Kissinger
Race:
The color of your skin plus how much the government helps you be healthy and safe.
A set of rules that people with light tan skin invented, that put people into groups--with some group with light tan skin getting more money, safety, and choice, than groups with brown skin.
Normalized violence:
I know we live in a culture that sometimes makes violence seem brave, or exciting, or normal; but this is a lie. Hurting other people is a very sad and very disappointing thing to do, because everyone deserves to be safe and not be hurt. Hurting people does not make us brave or tough, it just makes people sad, and not trust us.
Naming race isn’t racist:
Talking about or naming race is not racist, even though sometimes it might feel hurtful depending on how someone says it. Just like it is okay to call someone a girl, if they call them self a girl, isn't hurtful, unless it's said in a disrespectful way. Talking about race is important to understand how racism works and to fight against it.
Reverse racism isn’t real:
Saying not nice things to people with light tan skin may hurt white people’s feelings, but it does not make white people less safe. Saying not nice things about people with brown skin, can makes them less safe, and makes it harder for them to be free and healthy.
Consent (to ask questions):
Sometimes people don’t always want to answer questions about themselves. If you want to ask someone something personal about their body, or their family, ask them first if it's okay to ask them a question about their body or family. If they don’t, maybe tell me and I can write it down, and maybe we can try to find the answer another way!
Intent vs effect:
Even if we try to not hurt people by talking about [skin color or race], if people are hurt by what we say, that matters even more than what we meant. When people tell us we did something to hurt them we must believe them, and try hard not to do it ever again.
Equality vs equity:
Imagine you have three friends who are coming over for lunch. One friend hasn’t eaten for 2 days, one friend has only had breakfast today, and one friend just ate a huge hamburger and French fries and a milk shake. Equality means that when they come to your house, you give them all the exact same amount of food. Equity means that the friend who hasn’t eaten in 2 days get the most, because she's the hungriest, the friend who just had breakfast gets medium amount, and the friend who just had a hamburger and French fries gets the least, because she has already eaten lots of food today.
Suicide:
When someone decides to make their own body stop working. (*language about suicide offered by Jill MacFarlane, Director of the Sharing Place)
Myth of Meritocracy:
We get lots of messages that say that people have a lot or a a little money based on how hard they work. But that isn’t true. Some people work really hard and many hours every week and are very smart and they still don’t get paid enough money to have enough food and clothes and a safe house and doctor visits. Every kind of work people do, helps someone, in some way, and it is unfair that some work people get paid a lot of money and some work people get paid just a little.
Myth of the supremacy of white people:
You will get a lot of messages that say that you should feel loving of yourself because you have light tan skin, that people call white. This is not something you chose, and in this country white people have told a lot of lies and stories about being better than everyone else. Our skin color doesn't make us better or worse, it just is part of having a body with different amounts of melanin. Our job is to find ways to love ourselves based on how well we take care of each other.
Police murder:
The police made a choice to make his body stop working*. They may have done this because they believed lies about people with brown skin being dangerous. This is not true. I wish he was still alive because his life was very important.
*language about death offered by Jill MacFarlane, Director of the Sharing Place
Cracker:
The words cracker is a word that people use sometimes to try to hurt white people's feelings. The word is more making fun of someone not having a lot of money, than that their skin is light tan. It is unfair and unkind to say hurtful things about people not having money because, how much money someone has doesn’t have anything to do with how how hard they work or how smart or kind they are.
Reparations:
Fixing something wrong that happened in the past. We use this word a lot talking about Black people getting paid the money they deserve, but were never given during slavery.
Entitlement: (as explained to a white kid)
You get messages that say that because you have light tan skin, everything belongs to you. Like your body being where ever you want, being as loud as you want, etc
-isms//identity based oppressions:
-isms are lies that some peoples lives matter more than other peoples, based on a part of their body, or one thing about them. For example, classism, is the idea that the lives of people with more money, are more important than the lives of people with less money, or education. And while it is not our fault, if we have parts of us that are treated as "better" than other people, it is our job, to not believe the lie that we are better, or worse.
These lies affect how we act, where we live, who we are friends with, how sad we get when someone gets hurt, but it also affects schools, who gets what jobs, who gets lots of books in school, who gets access to doctors, who gets loans from the bank, who gets pulled over, who goes to jail the most, a lot of other important things.
I hope we can learn together about these lies, why people tell these lies, and how these lies are so harmful and scary and dangerous to both the people who get lied about and the people who do the lying.
Response when a child stereotypes:
"Maybe you haven't seen many [boys play with the dishes]. I wonder why that's true. [At my house, I'm the one who usually sets the table and washes the dishes.]"
-Eric Hoffman, quoted from Starting Small, Teaching Tolerance Project, page 39. [ ] indicates other scenarios can be inserted here.
Class(ism):
How much money a person has is not just because of how hard people work or how smart or talented they are at their skill. How much people get paid is often because of how much their boss choses to pay, what kind of jobs are in their town, what kind of jobs they have transportation to, if they get sick, if there's an emergency in their family and they need to take care of someone, or if they were able to go to school to learn certain skills they need for a job. We live in a culture that sometimes sends unfair messages about people who don’t have a lot of money, and it is really important that we understand that how much money someone has has nothing to do with how kind and smart and wonderful they are as a person. Everyone deserves to have enough money to buy everything to meet their physical needs.
Gender identity:
What gender you feel and know you are, despite what words grown ups used when you were born (like boy or girl). This is about what is on the inside. We don’t know what people’s gender is just by looking at them.
Biological sex:
What organs we use to pee (like a penis, vagina) as well as organs in the inside. People are male, female or intersex. But our sex is different from our gender.
Misogyny/Sexism:
Misogyny, is the lie that women and people who are feminine, are less important than men. Sometimes this means that women aren’t given the chance to have certain jobs, aren’t listened to when they have good ideas, or their bodies are hurt.
Transgender:
When babies are born doctors look at the baby and decide if the baby is a boy or a girl. But what some doctors and grownups don't know is that there are so many genders, not just boy and girl. Transgender is when the doctors guessed wrong about what the baby's gender is, and that person grew into a kid or an adult who knows that their gender is actually different than what the grown ups guessed.