Religion / Race & Racism

Martyr

a person who sacrifices their life for the sake of his/her religion

Saint

an individual considering exceptionally close to God who is exalted after death

Sacred

anything that is considered holy

Profane

anything that is considered unholy

Ritual

an act or series of acts regularly repeated over years or generations that embodies the beliefs of a group of people

Rite of passage

a category of ritual that enacts a change of status from one life stage to another, either for an individual or for a group

Liminality

one stage in a rite of passage during which a ritual participant experiences a period of outsiderhood, set apart from normal society, that is key to achieving a new perspective on community

Communitas

a sense of camaraderie, a common vision of what constitutes a good life, and a commitment to take social action to move toward achieving this vision that is shaped by the common experience of rites of passage

Pilgrimage

a religious journey to a sacred place as a sign of devotion and in search of transformation and enlightenment

Cultural materialism

a theory that argues material conditions, including technology and the environment, determine patterns of social organization such as religious principles

Secular

without religious or spiritual basis

Shamans

local religious practitioners with abilities to connect individuals with supernatural powers or beings to provide special knowledge and powers

Authorizing Process

the complex historical and social developments through which symbols are given power and meaning

Race

a flawed system of classification, no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into groups

Intersectionality

an analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification

Genotype

the inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism’s physical form

Phenotype

the way genes are expressed in an organisms physical form as a result of genotype interaction with environmental factors

Miscegenation

a demeaning historical term for interracial marriage

Whiteness

a culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia, designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who isnt

Jim Crow

laws implemented after the US civil war to enforce segregation legally

Hypodescent

sometimes called the “one drop of blood rule”; the assignment of children of racially mixed unions to the subordinate group

Nativism

the favoring of certain long term inhabitants, namely white people, over new immigrants

Racialization

the process of categorizing a particular racial character to a person or group

Individual racism

personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race

Microaggressions

common, everyday verbal or behavorial indignities that communicate negativity about someone else

Insitutional racism

patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies and systems

Racial idealogy

a set of popular ideas about race that allows the discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal