Racial color blindnessRacial color blindness refers to the belief that a person's race or ethnicity should not influence their legal or social treatment in society. The multicultural psychology field generates four beliefs that constitute the racial color-blindness approach. The four beliefs are as follows: (1) skin color is superficial and irrelevant to the quality of a person's character, ability or worthiness, (2) in a merit-based society, skin color is irrelevant to merit judgments and calculation of fairness, (3) as a corollary, in a merit-based society, merit and fairness are flawed if skin color is taken into the calculation, (4) ignoring skin color when interacting with people is the best way to avoid racial discrimination.
ClassicideClassicide is a concept proposed by sociologist Michael Mann to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence. Although it was first used by physician and anti-communist activist Fred Schwarz in 1972, classicide was popularized by Mann as a term that is similar to but distinct from genocide because it means the "intended mass killing of entire social classes.
ObjectificationIn social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification, as is self-objectification, the objectification of one's self. In Marxism, the objectification of social relationships is discussed as "reification".
Whiteness studiesWhiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce white privilege, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of systemic racism, and the exploration of other social phenomena generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of white people. It is an interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States from white trash studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century.
Human zooHuman zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state. They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries. These displays sometimes emphasized the supposed inferiority of the exhibits' culture, and implied the superiority of "Western society", through tropes that purported marginalized groups as "savage".
TribalismTribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civilizations. With a negative connotation and in a political context, tribalism can also mean discriminatory behavior or attitudes towards out-groups, based on in-group loyalty.
JudenfreiJudenfrei (ˈjuːdn̩ˌfʁaɪ, "free of Jews") and judenrein (ˈjuːdn̩ˌʁaɪn, "clean of Jews") are terms of Nazi origin to designate an area that has been "cleansed" of Jews during The Holocaust. While judenfrei refers merely to "freeing" an area of all of its Jewish inhabitants, the term judenrein (literally "clean of Jews") has the even stronger connotation that any trace of Jewish blood had been removed as an alleged impurity in the minds of the criminal perpetrators.
Yellow PerilThe Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror, the Yellow Menace and the Yellow Specter) is a racist color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. The concept of the Yellow Peril derives from a "core imagery of apes, lesser men, primitives, children, madmen, and beings who possessed special powers", which developed during the 19th century as Western imperialist expansion adduced East Asians as the Yellow Peril.
Stigma managementStigma management is the process of concealing or disclosing aspects of one's identity to minimize social stigma. When a person receives unfair treatment or alienation due to a social stigma, the effects can be detrimental. Social stigmas are defined as any aspect of an individual's identity that is devalued in a social context. These stigmas can be categorized as visible or invisible, depending on whether the stigma is readily apparent to others.
Environmental determinismEnvironmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst, Ian Morris, and other social scientists sparked a revival of the theory during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This "neo-environmental determinism" school of thought examines how geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions.
