What might be the differences between racism and
ethnocentrism?
Racism can be defined in many ways. Racism is the belief
that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to
that race, and a person’s social or moral trait can be determined by their
inborn characteristics. Racism may also
be defined as the hatred or dislike of one race by another. Individuals who
feel this way think that people of a different race are less than a human
because of skin color, religious beliefs, etc.
If a person is racist, they believe that other people are inferior
because of such reasons. For example, during the civil right movement, African
Americans fought for equality because they were being discriminated against
because of the race. This would be considered a form of racism because African
Americans were disliked because of their physical appearances.
Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of one's own
ethnic group. It is one of the main reasons for division between members of
different ethnicities, races, and religious group in the society. Even though
ethnocentrism is the belief of superiority of one’s own ethnic group, it can
also develop from racial or just the one-sided belief that their specific race,
religious group, or ethnicity is superior to any other group of that kind. For
example, a form of ethnocentrism would be if a person felt their religion is
more important than another.
Racism and ethnocentrism are often confused because they are
both based on cases where people are discriminated against based on their race
or beliefs. For example, after 9/11 occurred, racism spiked towards Muslims
based on the fact that it was Al-Qaeda, (a Muslim based organization) that
collaborated to organize the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the
Pentagon. Muslims throughout the United
States began to fear for their lives because people assumed they were terrorists
based on their race and how they looked.
This is not ethnocentrism—people like this do not believe that their
religion is superior to the Muslim religion. People who are racist towards
Muslims are so only because they believe that their religion is inferior and that
they are automatically a terrorist because of who was against the 9/11
attacks. Racism towards Muslims is still
a problem even though 9/11 happened 11 years ago. However, it would be ethnocentrism if a person
who practices Catholicism was prejudiced against all Muslims because they
believe that Catholicism is superior to the Muslim religion.
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