Afrophobia is a form of racism that targets individuals, groups and communities of African descent. Afrophobia ultimately seeks to dehumanise its target, and is linked to historical injustices experienced by black people, such as colonialism and negative stereotypes assigned to black people.  

Active and conscious action against all forms of racism. Anti-racist action aims to reduce ethnic discrimination, to mitigate the effects of discriminatory practices and to counter negative prejudices.  

Antisemitism is another word for Jew-hatred. Antisemitism denotes hostility towards Jewish people, which may be expressed in actions, attitudes or ways of thinking.  

Prejudice refers to a preconceived notion about a person or a phenomenon that is not based on reason or actual experience. Prejudices may arise from stereotypes, from ignorance or in other ways. They can also be implicit and unconscious. Prejudices are often directed at entire groups of people based on, for example, minority status or religion.    

Ethnic profiling refers to law enforcement targeting individuals based on their ethnicity, skin colour, religion or language. 

A group of people whose members share some common factor, such as cultural heritage, religion, language, origin or appearance.  

Harassment constitutes discrimination contrary to the Finnish Non-Discrimination Act. This law defines harassment as conduct that intentionally or effectively violates the dignity of a person. Such conduct creates a humiliating, threatening, hostile or offensive atmosphere associated with a prohibited reason for discrimination. 

The Finnish Act on Equality between Women and Men prohibits sexual harassment and discrimination based on gender, gender identity or gender expression. 

An approach in which a combination of factors is considered to influence the identity and status of an individual in social power relations. An intersectional approach avoids analysing individual factors such as gender, social class, age, ethnic background, functional capacity or sexual orientation in isolation.  

Islamophobia is a specific form of racism that motivates acts of violence, discrimination and racist hate speech targeting Muslims, or individuals, groups or communities who are assumed to be Muslim. The triggers for Islamophobia include negative stereotypes and special traits associated with Muslims as a group, and with the religion of Islam. Islamophobia leads to exclusion and dehumanising of Muslims.  

Microaggression refers to often unintentional comments or actions that reinforce and perpetuate racist or otherwise discriminatory stereotypes. Microaggressions ostracise people and make them feel like outsiders. 

A typical example of microaggression is addressing a person in English based on their appearance. Although this may be done with good intentions, the choice of language conveys an assumption that a person who stands out from the majority population cannot be a native Finnish speaker. Assuming that a person who was born in another country does not know Finnish can also be otherising and discriminatory. 

Repeatedly encountering microaggressions is stressful and leads to feelings of social exclusion.

Multiple discrimination refers to discrimination on two or more grounds. Belonging to visible minorities in particular exposes individuals to multiple discrimination. Multiple discrimination comes in three forms: 

1. Sequential multiple discrimination refers to a situation in which a person faces discrimination on different grounds on separate occasions. For example, an immigrant with disabilities can face discrimination in the labour market because of their disability and in the housing market because of their ethnic background. 
2. Additive multiple discrimination refers to a person’s experiencing discrimination on multiple grounds on the same occasion. For example, a job applicant can be discriminated against on the basis of both their gender and their religion. 
3. Intersectional discrimination happens when multiple grounds intersect with each other to produce distinct and specific grounds for discrimination. For example, a Swedish-speaking disabled person may encounter discrimination in health services that would not be faced by a Swedish speaker without disabilities or by a non-Swedish-speaking disabled person. 

Social norms refer to perceptions of normality that have become common ways of thinking. Norms include assumptions about individuals and groups.  

POC is an abbreviation of the expression ‘People of Colour’. There is currently no widely used Finnish translation of this term. The expression refers to individuals who are perceived as non-white due to various characteristics, such as name, skin colour or religion.  

BIPOC is an abbreviation of the terms ‘Black’, ‘Indigenous’ and ‘People of Colour’. This acronym has been introduced because black and indigenous peoples face forms of discrimination, oppression and racism that differ from those experienced by other POC. All of these expressions refer to groups of people who are not perceived as white.

Structural racism refers to latent or overt racism in societal norms and practices as well as in societal structures such as institutions, organisations, government agencies, contracts, legislation and services. 

Structural racism is often unconscious and can involve seemingly neutral practices that nevertheless effectively put people who are perceived as different from the majority population at a disadvantage. This kind of social exclusion leads to cultural, economic and social marginalisation. 

In other words, racism is not always something that arises consciously or between individuals, but is also present in the very fabric of society. The following are a few examples: 

1. Structural discrimination at work may be manifest in remuneration or other employment-related benefits, such as access to further training.  
2. Structural discrimination in education may arise when young people of presumed immigrant origin are directed towards certain fields at school, regardless of their own interests.  
3. An unusual name can affect access to opportunities in the housing market. 

Racism is a way of thinking in which groups of people are held to be inferior on the basis of such characteristics as ethnic origin, skin colour, nationality, culture, native language or religion. Racism may be manifest in various aspects of life as intentional or unwitting interaction between individuals and groups based on prejudice and fear of the unfamiliar, or as discriminatory practices within the structures of society. Racism perpetuates inequality, harming not only its targets but society as a whole. 

Racism is a system in which policies, institutional practices, culture and other norms perpetuate social dominances that hold certain groups of people to be inferior to others.  

Norm criticality refers to a critical examination of the norms that prevail in society and active measures to dispel norms. This is also known as norm awareness. The word ‘awareness’ highlights the point that social norms can be acknowledged without necessarily always adopting a critical attitude towards them.  

In the context of anti-racism, representation refers to the visibility of minorities and the presence or absence of their voices in society, such as in policymaking and the media. Representation is a measure of the opportunities of a group of people to be seen and to influence and be heard in society. 

Racialisation refers to a process of attaching assumptions, stereotypes and prejudices related to people’s abilities, customs and morals based on, for example, their skin colour or assumed ethnic background.  

Antiziganism refers to discriminatory and racist attitudes towards Roma, and to conduct based on prejudices and stereotypes concerning Roma people. Antiziganism leads to the exclusion and dehumanisation of Roma and limits their access to, for example, employment and housing.  

Treating a person less favourably than others or affording them a disadvantaged status due to some personal characteristic without an acceptable reason. Discrimination takes various forms: 

• Direct discrimination: Treating a person less favourably than others without an acceptable reason. For example, a trader denying a dark-skinned person admission to business premises.  
• Indirect discrimination: Policies, practices or procedures that appear to treat everyone equally but are in fact less fair to some people without an acceptable reason. For example, requiring advanced language competence when hiring, even where this is not necessary for performing the work. 
• Harassment

Refusal of reasonable accommodation: Public authorities, education providers, employers and providers of goods and services have a legal obligation to make reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. Accommodation ensures the equitable status of disabled persons in individual circumstances. Refusing to make reasonable accommodation constitutes discrimination. 

Instruction or order to discriminate: Instructing or ordering someone to discriminate against someone else is illegal. For example, a supervisor in a store who tells their staff not to serve people who appear foreign would be guilty of discrimination. Just giving the instruction is enough to break the law, even if the staff refuse to comply. Complying with an order or instruction to discriminate also constitutes discrimination. 

Hate speech refers to communication that incites hatred against an individual or a group of people. Hate speech is used to spread, incite, promote or justify racism, antisemitism or other forms of hatred. Hate speech can relate to skin colour, nationality or ethnic origin, or to personal attributes such as religion or beliefs, sexual orientation or disability.    

A hate crime is a criminal offence committed against a person, a group, property, an institution or a representative thereof that is motivated by prejudice or hostility to the victim’s presumed or actual ethnic or national origin, religious conviction or worldview, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or disability. 

Minority stress is a psychological phenomenon that describes a chronic state of stress resulting from minority status, due to perceived, cumulative experiences of discrimination, the anxiety and fear that these experiences cause, feelings of difference and experiences of otherness. Minority stress can negatively impact physical and mental health and well-being, and change a person’s social behaviour. 

Equality refers to the equal treatment of all people regardless of origin, sex, gender identity, gender expression, age, ethnicity or nationality, citizenship, language, religion or personal conviction, opinion, disability, medical condition, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics.  

Whiteness as a norm does not refer so much to skin colour as to unseen social hierarchies and power relations in which Western and European character is taken as a norm that defines social structures. The normativity only becomes evident when people deviate from it.