Definitions & FAQs

To be clear how we will conduct ourselves in this space and community, it is important to define what we mean by certain words that are filled with emotion and charged with positions. In the To Seek Justice community, we understand and use the following definitions knowing our understanding is evolving. [1]

We know we will make mistakes. We will call each other on those mistakes, and learn together with all the grace and mercy we can muster. 

Amelioration: Section 15(2) of the Charter.

Anti-racism: A practice, set of beliefs, and value system that recognizes the historic oppression and violence perpetuated against Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American bodies in the US [and in Canada] and that works to educate people about this oppression and to end that oppression in our current day.

Assimilation: Process of taking on social and cultural traits of the majority race in the nation in which one resides.

BLM (Black Lives Matter): An international activist movement bringing justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe. #BlackLivesMatter was founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi.

Cis-gender: Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.

Charter: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) available online here. 

Colonialism: European effort to maintain control of weaker nations made palpable by language eradication, land dispossession, and governing hegemony; the United States followed similar policy in the Philippines, the Caribbean, Latin America, and importantly North American Indigenous [First Nations, Metis, and Inuit].

Discrimination: Practice of treating similarly situated individuals differently because of race, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, or national origin.

Diversity: Policy founded on the belief that individuals of different races and ethnicities can contribute to workplaces, schools, governmental jobs and other societal settings.

Gaslighting: "An elaborate and insidious technique of deception and psychological manipulation, usually practiced by a single deceiver, or ‘gaslight’, on a single victim over an extended period. Its effect is to gradually undermine the victim’s confidence in [their] own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from appearance, thereby rendering [them] pathologically dependent on the gaslight in [their] thinking or feelings.” 

- Encyclopedia Britannica, retrieved on Jan 31, 2021

 Hate Crime: A crime motivated by bias based on race, religion, colour, national origin, sexual orientation, or other category designated by law.

Hate Speech: Racial slurs and epithets or other harsh language that has no purpose other than to demean and marginalize other people or groups.

Heteronormativity: Belief that heterosexuality, predicated on the gender binary of male female, is not only the norm or default sexual orientation, but also the only acceptable sexual orientation.

Homophobia: Prejudice, discrimination, and marginalization against queer identifying people and communities.

Identity: The descriptors by which one defines oneself, such as gender, race, ethnicity, etc.

Indigenous: Refers to a person whose sovereignty is based in a relationship to the land that they claim native affiliation and kinship with… [a good source for Canadian context is the Indigenous Bar Association: here]. Indigeneity is a form of sovereignty and as such should be understood within a nationhood framework and not just as a racial classification.

Indigenous Lives Matter: A movement to bring awareness to everyday issues faced by Indigenous people, First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people. Those include racial stereotypes, a loss of culture from residential schools, and water and infrastructure issues on First Nations. At time of writing To Seek Justice could not locate the original founders of this movement.  For information on the movement in Canada, see here.

Intersectionality: Theory introduced in 1989 by law professor and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw that individuals (particularly women of African descent) are marginalized by overlapping mutually inclusive contexts such as race, gender sexuality and class.

Islamophobia:

Islamophobia: The fear and targeting of people perceived to be Muslim. It has often resulted in violence enacted against Muslim people or anyone perceived to be Muslim.

LGBTQ2+: Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer, Two Spirited, Non-binary, Intersex, Asexual. For more information please see Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada resource online here. 

Neocolonialism: View that society is taking on the structure of a colonial society, with an occupying group maintaining control over a large but diffuse group, usually of normally non-white groups.

Patriarchy: System of beliefs and practices in which men dominate and control women, and all other non cis-hetero male identifying people.

Privilege: Right or advantage, often unwritten, conferred on some people but not others, usually without examination or good reason.

Racialization: Process of creating a race, such as Latinos; also injecting a racial element into a situation….

Racism:  Any program or practice of discrimination, segregation, persecution, or mistreatment based on membership in a race or ethnic group. It is important to note that racism, as it has been enacted in “modern” society requires the social, political, ideological, and economic power of the dominant race. It is systemic and institutional.

Residential Schools System: “The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Aboriginal children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into the mainstream Canadian society” – retrieved from Indigenous Foundations of the Arts, University of British Columbia, online here.

TRC: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canada. Online here. 

TRC Calls to Action: Summary of the action steps the TRC called upon the Government of Canada and all Canadians to support in order to reconcile Canada to First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples. Online here. 

Xenophobia: Fear of people from outside the US nation [or Canada]. A nationalized version of racism.