• Pack essential needs such as a first -aid kit, snacks, water, and other supplies (see “What to bring” section)
• Know what to expect
• Know how to get assistance
• Make a plan with your buddies in case you get separated
• Make sure to de-activate your phone’s Facial recognition unlocking or fingerprint unlocking feature

• Light backpack
• Water with a plastic bottle with squirt top, to drink and to wash your skin or eyes
• Identification
• Emergency contact information (not in your phone)
• Sunscreen
• Non-perishable packaged snacks (energy bars are ideal)
• Enough money for transportation, food, emergency
• Menstrual pads (tampons are not ideal in case you are arrested, you won’t have a chance to change)
• Basic First-Aid Kit
• Tissues
• Hand sanitizer
• Change of clothes
• Several days worth of medication, inhalers, insulin, etc.
• Fully charged phone
• Portable cell phone power bank charger

• Comfortable closed-toed shoes that you can walk or stand in for many hours, water proof if possible
• Clothing that covers your skin from sun, pepper spray or chemical exposure
• A hat as protection from the sun and/or other elements
• Face mask or bandana to cover your nose and mouth

Meaning: Violent person or a criminal

Origin: 14th Century India under British Occupation – it was a name for a criminal network that operated all around India’s main roads.

Why it is problematic: The truth is that thug today is a nominally polite way of using the N-word. When somebody talks about thugs ruining a place, it is a sly way of saying there go those black people ruining things again. Given the frequent ways this word has been used to describe Black Lives Matter protesters, the 17-year-old murder victim Trayvon Martin, and sadly, almost every black victim of police brutality — there is an undeniable racial charge to the word. When you consider the people who are called thugs — groups of black protesters, victims of racist violence, teenagers minding their own business, and flip the racial element, you’d be hard-pressed to find examples of white people being called thugs in earnest by the media (or really by anyone).

Meaning: One of the more common dictionary definitions for ghetto is “a quarter of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure.”

Origin: The word was first used in 1611 to describe a quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted. In the US, the word started to be used to describe predominantly African American neighborhoods – especially the densely populated areas that resulted from the mass migration of American blacks from southern states to northern cities – at some point in the 20th Century. It took on a very pejorative meaning to do with race, poverty, social-economic status, and neighborhoods that are run-down. Today the word is fairly widespread in the US, particularly with young people, meaning something like “poor and urban, cheap, substandard”.

Why it is problematic: But city or not, ghetto has come to be synonymous with poor and black (and given our previous point that “ghetto” carries such negative connotations, this can be insulting).

Meaning: betrayed

Origin: It’s a reference to slaves being literally sold down the river (the Mississippi or the Ohio rivers, specifically) from a slave-trading marketplace to another shore, where they would then be transported to a plantation.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: betrayed, thrown under the bus

Meaning: a group of people who criticize or heckle someone about insignificant things

Origin: In the 19th-century vaudeville era, the peanut gallery were the cheap seats. Peanuts were sold at these shows, and sometimes people seated that section would throw peanuts at unpopular performers. Often, the peanut gallery was largely occupied by Black theatergoers. If the term isn’t racist, it’s classist at the very least, suggesting those who sat in the cheapest section were ill-informed and gave unwarranted criticism. On top of it all, the shows at the time (Vaudeville) had some racist elements — featuring caricatures of Black people portrayed by white actors in blackface.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: hecklers

Meaning: Children’s rhyme, often used to make a “random” selection

Origin: While its earliest origins are unclear, this rhyme was well-known in the days of slavery in the United States. You’re probably familiar with the version that goes, “Eenie meenie miney mo / Catch a tiger by the toe,” but in a previous version of the song, the n-word was used instead of “tiger.” It’s thought that this was sung to describe what slave owners would do if they caught a runaway.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: Flip a coin.

Meaning: arrogant, self-important

Origin: While technically its origin was pretty neutral — its first known usage was in the collection of Black American folktales Uncle Remus in 1880 — over the years, “uppity” has become a racist term. White Southerners used “uppity” throughout modern history to describe Black people who violated their expectations of deference, or who they viewed as “not knowing their place.” In these situations, “uppity” was usually followed by the n-word.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: arrogant, conceited

Meaning: when people or companies are allowed to continue following an existing set of rules, even after new rules are put in place

Origin: Even after the 15th Amendment was passed in 1870, which gave Black American men the right to vote, a number of states instituted poll taxes and literacy tests to make voting more difficult for Black people. This was a way around an outright ban on Black voting, which had become illegal. But several states passed a law, known as “the grandfather clause,” saying that if you could vote before the 15th Amendment was passed or were the lineal descendant of a voter, you didn’t have to take the tests or pay the poll tax. In other words, if you were white, you were “grandfathered in” to being allowed to vote.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: exempted, excused, legacied in

Meaning: to be direct about telling the truth, even to the point of bluntness

Origin: In the late 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance, “spade” began to evolve into code for a black person. The Oxford English Dictionary says the first appearance of the word spade as a reference to blackness was in Claude McKay’s 1928 novel Home to Harlem, which was notable for its depictions of street life in Harlem in the 1920s. Fellow Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman then used the word in his novel The Blacker The Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, a widely read and notable work that explored prejudice within the African-American community. It was also in the 1920s that the “spade” in question began to refer to the spade found on playing cards.

The word would change further in the years to come. Eventually, the phrase “black as the ace of spades” also became widely used, further strengthening the association between spades and playing cards. As with many other racialized terms, there were efforts to reclaim the word after it had become a slur.

Why it is problematic: See the origin above.

What to say instead: Call it like it is