Diversity

Novant employees can learn more about the diversity initiative by going to the intranet and typing in diversity in the search window.

Defining Diversity: A Glossary of Diversity Related Terms
from the Magazine Publishers Association

• Age, Ageism: Referring to a person's age in a context in which age is not relevant reinforces U.S. society's emphasis on youth as the optimum stage of life. In the work force, "older workers" become another group to be demeaned or protected. In the media, women are often designated as "grandmothers" when their maternal and grand-maternal status is irrelevant.
• American Indian and Alaska Native:A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment. It includes people who classify themselves as described below.
  • American Indian: Includes people who indicate their race as "American Indian," entered the name of an Indian tribe, or report such entries as Canadian Indian, French-American Indian, or Spanish-American Indian.
  • Alaska Native: Includes written responses of Eskimos, Aleuts, and Alaska Indians as well as entries such as Arctic Slope, Inupiat, Yupik, Alutiiq, Egegik, and Pribilovian. The Alaska tribes are the Alaskan Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haida.
• Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes "Asian Indian," "Chinese," "Filipino," "Korean," "Japanese," "Vietnamese," and "Other Asian."
  • Asian Indian: Includes people who indicate their race as "Asian Indian" or identify themselves as Bengalese, Bharat, Dravidian, East Indian, or Goanese.
  • Chinese: Includes people who indicate their race as "Chinese" or who identify themselves as Cantonese, or Chinese American.
  • Filipino: Includes people who indicate their race as "Filipino" or as Philipino, Philipine, or Filipino American.
  • Japanese: Includes people who indicate their race as "Japanese" or as Nipponese or Japanese American.
  • Korean: Includes people who indicate their race as "Korean" or Korean American.
  • Vietnamese: Includes people who indicate their race as "Vietnamese" or Vietnamese American.
  • Cambodian: Includes people who indicate their race as Cambodian or Cambodia.
  • Hmong: Includes people who indicate their race as Hmong, Laohmong, or Mong.
  • Laotian: Includes people who indicate their race as Laotian, Laos, or Lao.
  • Thai: Includes people who indicate their race as Thai, Thailand, or Siamese.
  • Other Asian: Includes people who indicate their race as Bangladeshi, Burmese, Indonesian, Pakistani, or Sri Lankan.
• Assimilation: The process whereby a group gradually adopts the characteristics, customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture.
• Bias:An inclination of preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment.
• Bicultural:A person who is bicultural has the ability to function effectively and appropriately and can select appropriate behaviors, values and attitudes within either culture.
• Bigotry: Prejudice carried to the extreme of overt hatred, often carried to the point of violence.
• Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black or African American," or as African American, Afro-American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.
• Change Agents: Change agents are individuals within an organization, at any level. They are educated about managing diversity, and committed to facilitating change by modeling appropriate behaviors. They also take every opportunity to ensure that systems, policies and practices are flexible enough to work for everyone, modifying them as appropriate. Change agents include top leadership, management and employees at every level. Because managing diversity represents a major change in the management of human resources, without multi-level change agent’s implementation will stall. It requires support from leaders with vision, credibility and authority -- our champions. A managing diversity champion actively supports the organization's commitment to managing diversity and is seen by others as a valued member of the current culture and thus has credibility as the organization moves to the new vision.
• Classism:Any attitude or institutional practice which subordinates people due to income, occupation, education and/or their economic condition.
• Cross-cultural: The interaction, communication, or other processes between people or entities from two or more different cultures.
• Cultural Competence:The ability to function effectively in a society of culture variation.
• Cultural Conditioning:The unconscious process by which we are socialized to adopt the way of thinking of our own group.
• Cultural Diversity:Developing organizational processes that are inclusionary rather than exclusionary for cultural conformity.
• Culture:The collective behavior patterns, communication styles, beliefs, concepts, values, institutions, standards, and other factors unique to a community that are socially transmitted to individuals and to which individuals are expected to conform.
• Discrimination:Illegal treatment of a person or group (either intentional or unintentional) based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, handicap, or veteran's status. The term also includes the failure to remedy the effects of past discrimination. Making decisions in prejudicial manner that may exclude or deny opportunity; making distinctions based on racial, ethnic, or distinguishing features such as usage, religious identification of disability. A combination of prejudice (superiority/inferiority belief system) and institutional power, the power to impose that system on others. Without power, we all have about the same ability to be prejudiced. Destructive "isms" (racism, sexism, ageism, ethnocentrism, handicapism, homophobism, etc.) Use of institutional power to reinforce biased belief systems and to disadvantage others.
• Diverse Supplier:an U.S. citizen that owns a business certified as small, minority, or woman-owned.
• Diversity:Diversity is any collective mixture characterized by similarities and differences. It can refer to people, organizations, systems, etc. As a consequence, diversity can be defined as, or limited to, any dimension such as workforce diversity or functional diversity.
• Domestic Partner: Unmarried partners who share living quarters. Typically used in connection with legal and insurance matters related to gay and lesbian couples.
• Ethnic:Of or relating to people grouped according to a common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin.
• Ethnicity:A sense of being different than other groups because of cultural tradition, ancestry, national origin, history, or religion.
• Ethnocentrism:The emotional attitude that one’s own race, nation, or culture is superior to all others.
• Gay: A common and acceptable word for male homosexuals but used for both genders.
• Glass Ceiling:Barriers, either real or perceived, that affect the promotion or hiring of protected group members.
• Harassment (Ethnic And Racial):Words or conduct communicated with malice and with the intent to intimidate or harass another person in a way that is associated with that person’s race, ethnicity, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin.
• Harassment (Malicious):Intentional intimidation associated with a persons race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, or mental, physical, or sensory handicap that causes physical injury to another person; or by words or conduct places another person in reasonable fear of harm.
• Hispanicor Latin People who identify with the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories"Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban"—as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino." Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race.
• Homophobia:The irrational fear of homosexuals, homosexuality, or any behavior, belief, or attitude of self or others, which doesn't conform to rigid sex-role stereotypes. It is the fear that enforces sexism and heterosexism. The extreme behavior of homophobia is violence.
• Homosexual:A person who is emotionally, physically, and/or sexually attracted or committed to members of the same sex.
• Inclusiveness: The act of encouraging belonging.
• Institution Racism: A variety of systems operating within an organization that has attitudes, behaviors, and practices that subordinate persons or groups because of race or ethnic background.
• Ism:Power plus prejudice.
• Internalized Oppression:The process by which a member of an oppressed group comes to oppression: accept and live out the inaccurate myths and stereotypes applied to the oppressed group
• Lesbian:A common and acceptable word for female homosexuals only.
• Managing Diversity:This is a comprehensive managerial process for developing an environment that works for all employees. This process takes into account the need to change organization systems to sustain the organization’s ability to get from all employees everything they have to offer. It means approaching diversity at all three levels: Individual, team or department and organizational. It deals with the way managers do their jobs. It requires a fundamental change in the culture and the way things are done. It is a change in the corporate way of life.
• Minority Business Enterprise (MBE): a business that is at least 51 percent owned/operated/ controlled by:
  • African American (ethnic origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa)
  • Hispanic American (ethnic origins in any of the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America or the following regions: Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean basin only)
  • Asian-Pacific American (ethnic origins in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Trust Territories of the Pacific, or the Northern Mariana Islands)
  • Asian-Indian American (ethnic origins in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh)
  • Native American (a person who is American Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or native Hawaiian, and regarded as such by the community of which she or he claims to be a part)
• Multicultural:The co-existence of many distinct cultures within a given context, such as community or nation.
• Myth:An ill-founded belief, usually based on limited experience, given uncritical acceptance by members of a group, especially in support of existing or traditional practices and institutions.
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes people who indicate their race as "Native Hawaiian," "Guamanian or Chamorro," "Samoan," and "Other Pacific Islander."
• Other Pacific Islander:Includes people who indicate their race as a Pacific Islander group such as Tahitian, Northern Mariana Islander, Palauan, Fijian, or a cultural group such as Melanesian, Micronesian, or Polynesian.
• Organizational Assessment:Organizational assessment involves discovering where the organization is today. This process examines systems, policies and practices to ensure they are flexible enough to support the future state environment. This phase is at the heart of "managing diversity." It involves data collection to assess the organizational climate. It consists of surveys (Employee Opinion Surveys) which are attitudinal in nature to get a sense of what the work environment is like, cultural audits (which look at the organization's roots that drive its systems), assessments of written and unwritten organization policies and procedures, and reviews of complaint and grievance data. Change to support the effective management of diversity must take place at a root level to be lasting.
• Organizational Culture:"Underlying values, beliefs and principles that serve as a foundation for the organization's management system, as well as the set of management practices and behaviors that both exemplify and reinforce those principles." (Cox, Taylor Jr., Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research Practice, Berrett-Koehler: San Francisco, 1993, p. 161)
• Persons of Color:People of non-European ancestry. All persons self-identifying by the general categories of Black or African-American; Hispanic, Latino or Chicano; Asian or Pacific Islander; American Indian or Alaskan Native.
• Physical Abilities / Qualities:
  • Disabled (disAbled, disABLED). This is the most currently appropriate term.
  • Physically challenged -- this term reflects sensitivity but may be too "politically correct."
  • Vision impaired (limited vision)
  • Blind (no vision)
  • Hearing impaired (limited hearing)
  • Deaf (no hearing)
  • Hidden challenges (e.g., high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc.)
  • Little People
• Pluralism: A system that holds within it individuals or groups differing in a basic background experiences and cultures. It allows for the development of a common tradition, while preserving the right of each group to maintain its cultural heritage.
• Prejudice:Implies a preconceived idea, judgment, or opinion, usually an unfavorable one marked by hatred, and is directed toward a racial religious, cultural, or ethnic group.
  • Judgments about others that reinforce superiority/inferiority belief systems:
  • Exaggerate value/worth of a particular group while diminishing worth for other group(s).
  • Reinforced supported by stereotypes.
• Race:As a biological concept, it defines groups of human beings based on a set of genetically transmitted characteristics, i.e., physical characteristics, including color. The concept of race as a socio-cultural concept is being replaced by the more appropriate concept of ethnicity. The concept of race as used socio-politically by the U.S. Census Bureau reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. The latter socio-cultural and socio-political categories include both racial and national-origin groups.
• Racism:An assumption that there is an inherent purity and superiority of certain races and inferiority of others. It denotes any attitude, behavior, or institutional structure that subordinates persons or groups because of their race or ethnic background. Such practices can be intentional or unintentional.
• Self-Esteem:How a person feels about herself or himself; pride in oneself. Self-esteem is linked to family traditions, language, social customs, economic background, and other aspects of one's cultural environment.
• Sexism:A system of beliefs or attitudes, which relegates women to limited roles and/or options because of their sex.
• Sexual Harassment:Unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors (quid pro quo) and other verbal or physical conducts of a sexual nature when:
  • submission to such conduct is made either implicitly a condition of employment;
  • submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual; or
  • such conduct has the purpose of effect of unreasonably interfacing with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile working environment. (This definition is according to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines.)
• Sexual Orientation:
  • Gay refers to men whose primary attraction is to other men.
  • Lesbian refers to women whose primary attraction is to other women.
  • Bisexual refers to men or women whose attraction are to both sexes.
  • Asexual refers to men or women who do not experience sexual attractions.
  • Transsexual or transgender refers to men or women whose physical characteristics place them in one gender group yet emotionally they identify with another group.
• Some Other Race:Includes all other responses not included in the "White," "Black or African American," "American Indian and Alaska Native," "Asian," and the "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander" race categories described above. Persons identified as multiracial, mixed, interracial, or a Hispanic/Latino group (for example, Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban) in the "Some other race" category are included in this category.
• Stereotypes:The belief that all people of a certain racial, ethnic, or cultural group are the same and behave in the same way.
• Two or More Races:"Two or more races" refers to combinations of two or more of the following race categories:
  • White
  • Black or African American
  • American Indian and Alaska Native
  • Asian
  • Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
  • Some other race
• Understanding Differences:Understanding differences is the awareness and acceptance of differences among and between peoples both on an interpersonal and personal level. It encompasses myriad dimensions such as race, sex, age, thinking style, religion, sexual orientation, professional degrees, and functionality. This can also refer to organizations and systems (for example, field offices versus headquarters). The objective is to enhance interpersonal or inter-functional relationships.
• Values:Values are our subjective reactions to the world around us. They guide and mold our options and behavior. Values have three important characteristics. First, values are developed early in life and are very resistant to change. Values develop out of our direct experiences with people who are important to us, particularly our parents. Values rise not out of what people tell us, but as a result how they behave toward us and others. Second, values define what is right and what is wrong. Notice that values do not involve external, outside standards to tell right or wrong; rather, wrong, good or bad is intrinsic. Third, values themselves cannot be proven correct or incorrect, valid or invalid, right or wrong. If a statement can be proven true or false, then it cannot be a value. Values tell what we should believe, regardless of any evidence or lack thereof.
• Valuing Differences:Refers to systemic, organizational and personal development work (not a program) that focuses on all employees, clients, customers, and investors feeling valued (not just tolerated).
• White:A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "White" or as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.
• Woman Business Enterprise (WBE): a business that is at least 51 percent owned/operated/ controlled by a non-minority woman.

African American

Arab American 

Asian American

Caucasian American 

Disabled

Gay/Lesbian 

Hispanic American 

Hmong 

Native American

Vietnamese American