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Affinity Groups1: Affinity Groups (AGs) or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are organizationally recognized and strategic partners internal and external to the Coast Guard linked by a common purpose, ideology, or interest. They play a vital role in ensuring an inclusive environment where all are valued, included, and empowered to succeed. AGs and ERGs provide the potential for “critical mass” of employees to increase workplace inclusion.3 They are instrumental in helping the organization meet diversity and inclusion goals by helping to attract, retain and develop diverse individuals. The Coast Guard currently collaborates with thirteen affinity groups that represent various demographics.
Bias1: A prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another usually in a way that is considered unfair. Biases may be held by an individual, group, or institution and can have negative or positive consequences. Types of bias: Affinity Bias, Confirmation Bias, Bandwagon Effect, and Attractiveness Bias.
Blind Spots1: The collection of unconscious biases that lead to assumptions that influence behaviors. Hidden biases impact our perceptions of social groups without our awareness or conscious control. It shapes our likes and dislikes as well as influences our judgments about people’s character, abilities, and potential. It’s called a blind spot because we cannot see it, we are not aware of the bias. The blind spot is our inability to see the bias as well as its impact on our own judgment process.
Culture1: The way we learn to interpret, give meaning to, and function in the world based on the shared values, beliefs, history, transitions, standards, language, behavioral norms, communication styles, etc. of the communities with which we primarily identify.
Cultural Fluency1: A process of lifelong learning resulting in knowledge, communication skills, behaviors, and attitudes that allow us to work effectively with others from different cultural backgrounds - increasing the ability to maximize the benefits of diversity within our workforces.
Devotion to Duty1: We are professionals, military and civilian, who seek responsibility, accept accountability, and are committed to the successful achievement of our organizational goals. We exist to serve. We serve with pride.
Diversity1: Diversity refers to the variety of similarities and differences among people, including but not limited to: gender, gender identity, ethnicity, race, native or indigenous origin, age, generation, sexual orientation, culture, religion, belief system, marital status, parental status, socio-economic difference, appearance, language and accent, disability, mental health, education, geography, nationality, work style, work experience, job role and function, thinking style, and personality type.
Diversity Stewardship2: Emphasize the need for leaders to practice thoughtful and responsible care of our increasingly diverse Coast Guard Academy community.
Dominant Culture3: The cultural beliefs, values, and traditions that are centered and dominant in society’s structures and practices. Dominant cultural practices are thought of as “normal” and, therefore, preferred and right. As a result, diverse ways of life are often devalued, marginalized, and associated with low cultural capital. Conversely, in a multicultural society, various cultures are celebrated and respected equally.
Equity1: The guarantee of fair treatment, access and opportunity for advancement for all (employees) while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding unbalanced conditions is needed to assist in fostering equality in the provision of effective opportunities to all groups
Equity-Minded1: Used to describe actions that demonstrate individuals’ capacity to recognize and address racialized structures, policies, and practices that produce and sustain racial inequities.
Honor1: Integrity is our standard. We demonstrate uncompromising ethical conduct and moral behavior in all of our personal and organizational actions. We are loyal and accountable to the public trust.
Inclusion1: A dynamic state of operating in which diversity is leveraged to create a fair, healthy, and high-performing organization or community. An inclusive environment ensures equitable access to resources and opportunities for all. It also enables individuals and groups to feel safe, respected, engaged, motivated, and valued for who they are and for their contributions toward organizational goals.
Inclusion Dialogue1: A creative process for leading collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge and creating possibilities for action in groups of all sizes; it is a method for engaging people in meaningful conversations. The goals of Inclusion Dialogues are to maximize collective intelligence, welcome and listen to diverse viewpoints, encourage full participation and civility, and harvest ideas that propel the conversation forward into action.
Inclusive Excellence2: When an organization or team is running at peak performance with regard to creating fair, healthy, equitable and high-performing production. Inclusive excellence is achieved when the climate in an organization ensures equitable access to resources and opportunities for all and when individuals and groups feel safe, respected, engaged, motivated, and valued, for who they are and for their contributions toward organizational goals. Inclusive excellence is achieved only when all minoritized groups and members feel the above.
Inclusive Leadership2: Leadership that is made up of individuals who are culturally competent and racially literate. Inclusive leadership involves a deep awareness of the dynamic between leader and subordinate and recognizes that race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation and alike are significant variables in managing and supporting effective and diverse teams. Once more, inclusive leadership seeks to ensure a broad array of voices are represented and equitably amplified in the spaces where strategic decisions are made for the organization.
Institutional Bias2: Most organizations are not neutral, in other words they have inherent, often unspoken biases. For example, biases that favor people who identify as white, male, Christian, heterosexual, cisgender, ambulatory, and English speaking. These inherent biases can often be seen in an organization’s leadership composition, polices, traditions, customs, decorations, and physical construction. Equity-minded practitioners seek to eliminate institutional biases such that all employees feel a sense of belonging and have equal access to opportunity and reward.
Intersectionality6: The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups
Intrusive Leadership4: A leadership style that is not about analyzing your direct reports and reading them and jumping to conclusions. It is simply about getting to know them. This is a skill but can be developed with practice. It is important to be patient because you are also establishing trust and rapport with them. Intrusive leadership is not about analyzing your direct reports and reading them and jumping to conclusions. It is simply about getting to know them.
Microaggression1: Statements, actions, or incidents regarded as indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group. It is also defined as brief but commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults toward an individual based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, weight, etc.
Micro-inequities1: Subtle slights and snubs that devalue individuals and often prompt employees to leave an organization. A theory that refers to the hypothesized ways in which individuals are either singled-out, overlooked, ignored, or otherwise discounted based on unchangeable characteristic such as race or gender.
Minoritized2: A social group that is devalued in society and given less access to its resources. This devaluing encompasses how the group is represented, what degree of access to resources it is granted, and how the unequal access is rationalized. As used by the Coast Guard Academy, an adverb deliberately used to describe cadets of color or underrepresented minorities (URM) that refers to the actions (intended or unintended) taken by institutions that lead to the socially-constructed minoritization of racial and gender and other groups that make up our diverse community.
Multicultural3: Characterizing term for racially, ethnic, culturally and linguistically diverse groups that includes acceptance of, respect for, and inclusion of others. This term reflects a society that supports diverse groups and individuals of all backgrounds to participate in social and civic relationships so that systematic exclusion or overt and extended oppression do not exist.
Race:
- 5A social construct, meaning the notion of race was created by people. As a scientific tool for categorizing different types of human beings “race” has no value. However, race as a social reality has tremendous importance and it has been used over the centuries to maintain the dominance of certain racial groups over others.
- 6Any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.
Racism:
- 5A system in which a dominant race believe they are superior and benefit from the oppression of other races - whether they want to or not.We don't live in a society where every racial group has equal power, status, and opportunity.
- 6A belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
Racist:
- 5A person that adheres to a system in which a dominant race believe they are superior and implements systems that privilege the dominant race at every conceivable social, political, and economic opportunity. A racist in essence, wants to benefit from the oppression of other races.
- 6A person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
Respect1: We value our diverse workforce. We treat each other and those we serve with fairness, dignity, and compassion. We encourage creativity through empowerment. We work as a team.
Stereotype1: An oversimplified generalization about a person or a group. These can be about both negative and positive qualities but regardless, they lump people together. Stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts and become a bias when you apply the stereotype to an action.
Systemic Barriers3: Consists of patterns of behavior, policies or practices that are part of the social or administrative structures of an organization, and which create or perpetuate a position of relative disadvantage for marginalized persons.
Systemic Racism (or Institutional Racism):
- 5Systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantages African Americans
- 7Racism resulting from the inherent biases and prejudices of the policies and practices of social and political organizations, groups, or institutions.
Unconscious Bias1 (or Implicit Bias): Social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one's tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.
References:
1. U.S. Coast Guard Diversity Action Plan 2019 – 2020
2. U.S. Coast Guard Academy Diversity Stewardship Action Plan 2020 - 2030
3. Building Equity & Inclusion through the Power of Language | Utah Division Of Multicultural Affairs
4. aboutleaders.com/intrusive-leadership/
5. Urban Dictionary
6. Merriam Webster Dictionary
7. Free Dictionary