A Living, Growing List
Language is complex. As we constantly learn and grow, it is important to continually use language in as accurate a way as we can in order to be clear about the meaning and intent of our words. For this reason, we feel the need to provide a page compiling phrases that we commonly use on the blog and may even take for granted.
This page is a living document. Its purpose is to explain words and phrases in a more precise and general way than we have space to do in our blog posts; indicate context for why we choose to describe situations in one way over another; and to point readers of our blog toward some of the resources that taught us so that anyone has the opportunity to come to their own conclusions about our language rather than putting their trust in just one source. The definitions we present will necessarily indicate our own beliefs, and we try our best to be as straightforward as possible so that these definitions are accessible to everyone.
- apartheid: Defined by the ICC as inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another.
- mutual aid – Collective coordination and action in conjunction with social movements to create transformative change and/or solve problems within a given community. Gives agency to and builds solidarity within the community immediately affected by the issues being addressed.
- Further reading: Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And The Next) by Dean Spade
- neoliberal – An economic philosophy that places the responsibility of success and self-sustainability solely on the individual without consideration to societal or systemic forces. Characterized by policies of deregulation, globalization, free-trade, privatization, and austerity.
- Further Listening: David Harvery’s Anti-capitalist Chronicles Podcast: Episodes 1 & 2; Entry Level Left Podcast: Episode 3
- systemic racism – Laws and societal customs that reproduce racial inequality and racial oppression regardless of the beliefs held by the individuals enforcing those laws.
The Wobble 