Important Announcements

Nondiscrimination Statement Update

Boston Medical Center Health System complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, national origin (including limited English proficiency and primary language), religion, culture, physical or mental disabilities, socioeconomic status, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity and/or expression. BMCHS provides free aids and services to people with disabilities and free language services to people whose primary language is not English.

To see our full nondiscrimination statement, click here.

Campus Construction Update

Starting September 14, we’re closing the Menino building lobby entrance. This, along with the ongoing Yawkey building entrance closure, will help us bring you an even better campus experience that matches the exceptional care you've come to expect. Please enter the Menino and Yawkey buildings through the Moakley building, and make sure to leave extra time to get to your appointment. Thank you for your patience. 

Click here to learn more about our campus redesign. 

Racism

Racism

Noun

A system of power and oppression, codified into laws, policies, and institutions, based on the socially and politically constructed concept of race, that advantages the dominant group (White people) and disadvantages non-dominant groups (people of color). Racism operates in the following ways: 

 

  • Internalized Racism - The set of private beliefs, prejudices, and ideas that individuals have about the superiority of White people and the inferiority of people of color (can be conscious or subconscious). Among people of color, it manifests as internalized racial oppression. Among White people, it manifests as internalized racial superiority. 
  • Interpersonal Racism - The expression of racism between individuals. These are interactions occurring between individuals that often take place in the form of harassing, racial slurs, or telling of racial jokes. Interpersonal racism also includes doing nothing and/or being silent when harassing, racial slurs, or telling of racial jokes occur.  
  • Institutional Racism - Discriminatory treatment, unfair policies and practices, and inequitable opportunities and impacts within organizations and institutions, based on race that routinely produce racially inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for White people. Individuals within institutions take on the power of the institution when they reinforce racial inequities.
  • Structural Racism - Racial bias across institutions and society over time. It’s the cumulative and compounded effects of an array of factors such as public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms that work in various, often reinforcing, ways to perpetuate racial inequity.

Source

Adapted by the Boston Public Health Commission and Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center from Race Forward

The Glossary for Culture Transformation is a living document to be revised on an annual basis.

Suggested Citation: Office of Equity, Vitality, and Inclusion, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University Medical Group. Glossary for Culture Transformation. 2021.

For questions or suggestions, please email wordsmatter@bu.edu