Ethnocentrism and Racism

Abstract

Ethnocentrism describes an individual or group's tendency to see their own group or culture as superior in culture and practices. Racism is a belief that human beings can be divided into various races, and that certain races are inferior to others. Racism has been blamed for various discriminatory policies throughout American history, including eugenics, slavery, segregation, and immigration. Today, ethnocentrism and racism continue to be important in discussions pertaining to issues such as education and social justice.

Overview

The term ethnocentrism was first coined by American sociologist William Graham Sumner in 1906. Sumner described ethnocentrism as an individual's tendency to see his own group or culture as central or most important, relating all other groups to his own. Today, the definition of ethnocentrism also includes a belief that one's own culture or group is superior to others. Most social scientists believe that some degree of ethnocentrism is unavoidable in humans; it is inherent in how people see and organize their concept of the world (Kam & Kinder, 2007). One of the challenges of social science research is the impartiality imparted by ethnocentric tendencies. Scientists' goal is to see the world from an unbiased, objective point of view; however, impartiality may be impossible due to previous experiences. While a certain degree of ethnocentrism is natural and unavoidable, extreme ethnocentrism can be very dangerous and have ill effects on individuals and societies, leading to discrimination or persecution, or in extreme cases, war or genocide.

Human Nature. Ethnocentrism is related to ethnicity. Ethnicity refers to one's nationality, where one is born or raised, and the culture that an individual identifies with. The United States is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Cindy D. Kam and Donald R. Kinder (2006) believe that viewing outside groups as dissimilar and inferior to one’s own is part of human nature. Survey studies have proven that when humans refer to and discuss groups outside their own, they often do so in negative terms. Ethnocentrism is measured by how an individual feels toward groups in general rather than a specific group and what stereotypes or beliefs that individuals hold about these outside groups.

Racism is a belief that humans can be divided into various groups by race, and that the members of certain races are inferior to those of others, whether by intelligence, morals, culture, or physical abilities. Racism, unlike ethnocentrism, is directed at a certain group or groups, or at individuals. The term was first used in the 1930s, primarily as a response to the treatment of Jews by the German Nazis. However, racism as it is defined today can be identified much earlier in human history (Rattansi, 2007). Modern-day racism is largely seen as a product of the development of race categories and how people came to view those of different races. Racism has been a driving force behind many conflicts around the world, including colonialism by Great Britain, the Holocaust in Europe, and slavery and segregation in the United States.

As one of the most ethnically and racially diverse countries in the world, the United States has struggled with issues driven by racism and ethnocentrism throughout its history into the present day. Today, the terms are often used interchangeably. In order to understand these issues further, it is important to discuss the development of racial categories and their historical significance, as well as the part that these concepts have played in various events and continue to play today.

History

The Development of Race. An individual's race is imperative to their social identity, as well as their interaction with others, whether they recognize it or not. Most scientists today do not see race as a useful biological concept. However, it is an important cultural construct, invented and further developed by humans (Smedley, 1999).

Racial categories and the act of dividing people into races became prevalent during the fifteenth century when travel and colonization of other continents were on the rise, especially by European nations. Exploration, imperialism, and colonialism led to a curiosity about others who looked different from oneself. Audrey and Brian Smedley (1999) trace ethnocentrism in North America, the development of racial categories, England's treatment of the Irish, and English explorers’ interactions with groups met through travel, trade, and colonization. For example, the English exhibited extreme ethnocentrism toward the Irish and treated them as second-class people. When explorers met the American Indians during the beginning of the colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century, this ethnocentrism continued, coupled with racism—Indians were often generalized as savage, corrupt, or inferior.

The North American slave trade had some of the greatest impacts on the development of racial categories and racism. Slavery had existed long before the colonization of North America. However, slavery in this new context had a much larger impact on the construction of race and racism. From the beginning of the American colonies, there was a system of indentured servitude through which poor Europeans exchanged several years of labor for passage, room, and board. When indentured servants fulfilled the terms of their contract, their servitude ended and servants were granted freedom dues, which usually included plots of land and supplies as payment for their service. The first Black Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. At this time, there were no slave laws in place in the American colonies, and Black Africans and poor White colonists were both treated as indentured servants. Many wealthy landowners began to feel threatened by the growing economic power of former indentured servants and sought to limit freedoms and opportunities for the poorest colonists. The earliest slave laws were passed several decades after the first Black indentured servants arrived in colonial America, first in Massachusetts in 1641 and then in Virginia in 1661. In the early years of American slavery, English colonists typically enslaved only non-Christians, not Black Africans in particular. At this time, enslaved people could typically earn their freedom by converting to Christianity. As a way to limit the freedoms and mobility of indentured servants and enslaved people, racial slavery created a permanently dependent labor force of Black slaves who were clearly set apart from their poor White counterparts. Under the slave system, while poor Europeans who came to the colonies as servants could eventually gain freedom, Black slaves had no opportunities to earn their freedom and remained permanently enslaved. As slavery became more ingrained, slaves were stripped of more and more rights and increasingly seen as less than human. Some historians have argued that racial slavery served an important role in preventing cooperation and solidarity between poor Black and poor White colonists, thereby solidifying the economic power of the wealthy, landowning elite. For these critics, racial categories in the early American colonies served as a way of obscuring class distinctions, so that poor White indentured servants felt they had more in common with the White landowning elite than the Black enslaved people whom they worked alongside.

While slavery had existed around the world long before the English colonies in America, English slavery was very different—there was an extreme denial of recognition that enslaved people were human beings; they were seen as property and the laws treated them as such (Smedley, 1999).

English colonists began viewing people hierarchically and exhibited ethnocentrism toward other countries. This mindset is often connected with how slavery developed in the United States. Slavery placed Black individuals in a different category from White individuals and attributed all sorts of differences in characteristics and abilities between the two. By the eighteenth century, reputable European scientists, who had little exposure to individuals of different backgrounds and few facts based in sound scientific practices, had begun to classify human beings into racial categories and connected cultural, physical, and behavioral attributes to each race, creating a hierarchy of races. Through this hierarchy, White individuals received paternalistic justification for treating Black slaves as sub-human. Slavery was a precursor to how the ideology of race pervaded North America; it compounded the differences between White and Black individuals, and established the English at the top of any hierarchy of human beings (Smedley, 1999).

Government & Race. In 1790, the Naturalization Act was passed in the United States, restricting citizenship to only free White people. This law was not fully eliminated until 1952 with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in immigration and naturalization processes, over which time many people tried to prove themselves as White in order to gain the benefits afforded to citizens. Other laws were set into motion to prevent Black Americans and other minority groups from gaining the same privileges as White Americans. These laws addressed such basic freedoms as marriage and education (Smedley, 1999).

The end of slavery brought other issues of race and ethnicity to the United States. After slavery was outlawed, many states instituted Jim Crow laws to segregate Black Americans and restrict their freedom. Even though the Fourteenth Amendment ensured that all individuals born in the United States were US citizens and granted them equal protection under the law, many injustices continued to prevail. In other parts of the country, Black Americans continued to face discrimination and limits on their freedoms. However, they were not the only ones who faced the negative impact from ethnocentrism and racist attitudes. In the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, twenty-three million immigrants from central and eastern Europe arrived in the United States. These groups, though they were White, faced backlash from White Americans and were consequently labeled as inferior intellectually and different from those groups who were already in the United States. However, people from this migration, one of the largest in history, eventually identified as White and were able to attain higher social positions than African Americans or American Indians (Smedley, 1999).

By the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of intelligence testing became popular, and scientists began to measure the intelligence of various groups in an attempt to further separate races and establish hierarchy. Scientists began testing all immigrants, and testing to enter into the US Army also became common. Many advocated eugenics, or the idea that all things were inherited, including intelligence, criminality, reason, and there were advocates for the forced sterilization of those people who exhibited negative behaviors or traits (Smedley, 1999). All of these developments fueled the concept of racism toward communities of color.

Between World War I and World War II, the Ku Klux Klan used intimidation tactics to scare and control Black Americans. Furthermore, demographic changes were occurring, as more middle- class Whites moved to the suburbs, away from cities, fueling racial tensions even further. However, as the twentieth century progressed, changes began to occur. First, the ideas behind the science of race—the notion that different races were biologically different and thus were born into a naturally hierarchical order—began to meet more opposition and fall apart under scientific scrutiny. Scientists and others began to think of race as a socially constructed phenomenon and challenged previous ideas regarding the hierarchy of races. Furthermore, people in the United States were exposed to new cultures and different people all over the world as the country became more diverse and people traveled more widely and came into contact with other cultures. Finally, the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany against Jews and other minority groups created a wave of antiracist activism among Americans that made it clear that individuals and communities were reassessing values and ideas that they had once accepted as fact (Smedley, 1999).

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the civil rights movement gained momentum, and various groups demanded the repealing of certain laws that continued to create racial hierarchies and corralled all people of color as second-class citizens. Many laws were passed during this time, granting rights that had been denied to groups of Americans for many years. While people in the United States have made many inroads on dealing with racism and ethnocentrism, there are still prominent issues that arise and are intertwined with race and ethnicity.

Types of Racism. There are several different types of racism that are discussed throughout the literature. The three major types include:

• Individual racism,
• Institutional racism, and
• Cultural racism.

Individual racism refers to the prejudices toward other groups that an individual displays or believes in (Franklin, Boyd-Franklin, & Kelly, 2006). These actions or behaviors are fueled by beliefs that there are hierarchical differences between races. Institutional racism encompasses policies or procedures of a certain institution such as a company, a community, or a governing body that restrict or discriminate against certain groups (Franklin, Boyd-Franklin, & Kelly, 2006). Cultural racism is a third type of racism that is a result of one group's advantageous position in society over another. This type of racism refers to one group's ability to determine how certain values or practices become legitimate parts of a culture. Slavery in the United States and apartheid in South Africa are examples of cultural racism (Franklin, Boyd-Franklin, & Kelly, 2006).

Prejudice & Discrimination. Prejudice and discrimination are words often used in association with racism and ethnocentrism. Prejudice is defined as an attitude toward or judgment about a person based on a belief one has about the group that the person identifies with. Discrimination is behaving a certain way toward a person or a group because of the values or ideas that you associate with that group. Both are fundamentally linked to the concepts of ethnocentrism and racism. While ethnocentrism and racism are similar, ethnocentrism is broader. Racism is targeted at specific groups, while ethnocentrism is a more general outlook rejecting groups outside one’s own. Ethnocentrism has often been closely connected to nationalism, or the idea that one's own nation has practices or norms that make it superior to others (Kam & Kinder, 2006).

Viewpoints

While the United States has made strides in combating both racism and ethnocentrism, and attitudes toward other groups outside one's own have certainly changed, racism and ethnocentrism continue to be important and present concepts. The United States is one of the most diverse countries in the world, racially and ethnically, with a long history of clashes between racial and ethnic groups.

The racial and ethnic demographics of the United States are changing rapidly. In 2019, the US Census Bureau reported that just over 60 percent of Americans identified as White alone. By 2060, that number is projected to be closer to 44 percent, meaning that White Americans will no longer make up the majority of the United States population. This diversity presents unique challenges in areas such as education, health care, and public policy.

Furthermore, in today's global economy, there are benefits as well as threats. While the United States has largely enjoyed success in the world market, this status does not preclude the United States from tensions. On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the United States, and fears from these attacks have affected how Americans feel about non-Americans around the world and US policy-making strategy in wake of these threats. Likewise, policies created during President Donald Trump's administration increased tensions between the US and many other countries, including trading partners like China and Canada.

Racism in the United States has mostly been directed at minority groups by the White majority in various areas such as educational, housing, and employment opportunities. These groups include American Indians, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans. All of these groups have struggled against racism and exclusion from the American story.

Color-Blindness. Today, one of the major arguments pertaining to racism is the idea of "color-blindness." Color-blindness is a term that has become associated with law-making bodies, arguing that race should not matter in making decisions in public matters, even if the goal is to improve inequalities or amend previous inequities. Many people believe that racism and race are no longer important issues in US society, or that discussing race actually holds back progress, that racism is a thing of the past, and involving race in decision-making procedures is actually racist itself and counterproductive (Doane, 2006). As a result of these ideas, many laws and practices such as affirmative action or using quotas at colleges and universities have been challenged in courts.

Others believe that color-blindness is simply a cover up or a denial that racism still exists and race continues to matter in US society, and allows claims of racism to be blamed on hypersensitive minorities. Critics of color-blindness also contend that denying that race matters or that racism continues to exist allows existing racist policies to stay in place, limiting the progress toward a more egalitarian society (Doane, 2006).

Issues

Further relevant issues regarding the question of racism in the United States revolve around the idea that anyone can be a racist, even those who belong to communities of color. While it is true that all human beings can harbor beliefs and ideas about certain racial groups, critics of this rationalization contend that while anyone can certainly be racist, using this explanation as a reasoning for not continuing to address racism in the United States removes the burden of past racist policies and actions that were largely focused on mistreatment of non-white groups (Doane, 2006). McIntosh (1988) argues that White Americans, unlike people of color, are systemically conferred certain everyday privileges because they are White, while these privileges are denied to other racial groups simply because of the color of their skin. These privileges alone prove that there continues to be a problem of racism in the United States and that race continues to matter. McIntosh (1988) labels this privilege as "white privilege,” a social power held by Whites that is unearned but given at birth and is ingrained into US culture and society.

Research on racism and its effects on the victims of racism have also shown that those who are affected by racist beliefs can suffer from invisibility syndrome and can also internalize racist attitudes. Invisibility syndrome occurs when individuals feel they cannot express their own identity because of existing stereotypes about their group. Victims may also begin to internalize certain viewpoints about their group and accept certain stereotypes as true, which can have harmful effects such as stunting achievement (Franklin, Boyd-Franklin, & Kelly, 2006). While there has been much research regarding racism and its impact, in light of many arguments surrounding racism today, more research will need to focus on pertinent issues such as the impact of color-blindness or the withdrawal of specific policies such as affirmative action.

Ethnocentrism differs from racism but also continues to be a salient discussion in the United States today. The tragic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were not only shocking, but the event and reactions to it redirected US policy. First, President George W. Bush and the United States government declared a war on terrorism. One of the first outcomes of that war was the passage of the Patriot Act by a huge majority in both houses of Congress. The Patriot Act allowed the government new powers to gather intelligence, including some that certain groups declare unjust. The countries of Afghanistan and Iraq were targeted as strongholds for terrorism, and both countries were attacked (Kam & Kinder, 2007).

The September 11th terrorist attacks drastically changed the foreign policy of the United States and, for some, heightened ethnocentric and racist beliefs against Arabs and Muslims. Kam and Kinder (2007) conducted research that addresses how ethnocentrism relates to an individual's support of the new foreign policy. In the past, studies relating ethnocentrism to public opinion have been few and far between, especially in the United States. In conducting this analysis, Kam and Kinder (2007) studied survey data from the 2000–2002 National Election Study, which contains information on how the American public's political leanings. Ethnocentrism was tested for in this survey data, and the timing proves useful as the surveys were taken before and after September 11, 2001, so changes in attitudes can be compared and contracted.

Ethnocentrism is measured through the prevalence of stereotypes, or the negative beliefs about another group, that one holds. These beliefs can include factors such as trustworthiness, intellectual acumen, or physical talents. Kam and Kinder (2007) found that Americans who support the war on terror do so for various reasons, and ethnocentrism had a significant impact on this support. What is interesting about this study however, is that the research focused on how Americans rate other Americans who are part of different groups than they are. The individuals were most likely to rate Americans who were outside their own groups negatively were more likely to support the new foreign policy. This research presents that ethnocentrism continues to have significant effects on what people believe, and this affects how people translate their political opinions. However, more research on ethnocentric attitudes in the United States may be necessary to understand further consequences.

After Trump was elected in 2016, ethnocentrism came once again to the forefront of American politics and culture. During the Trump era, the country experienced a rise in nationalism among conservative Republicans. Events such as the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 brought racism and White supremacy out of the shadows and into more mainstream culture. Many Americans joined Black Lives Matter protests as the country continued to reckon with its ethnocentric and racist identities.

Terms & Concepts

Color Blindness: Color blindness means to ignore race in creating policies and laws.

Discrimination: Discrimination is behaving a certain way toward a person or a group because of the values or ideas that you associate with that group.

Ethnicity: Ethnicity is defined by one's nationality and the culture that an individual identifies with.

Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own group is most important and that all other groups are inferior to one's own group.

Eugenics: Eugenics is a belief that all traits are inheritable and that the human race can be improved through selective breeding.

Racism: Racism is a belief that humans can be divided into various groups by race and that the members of certain races are inferior to those of other races.

Segregation: Segregation is the separation of people, in this context, by race or ethnicity.

White Privilege: White privilege is the concept that White people in certain societies are born with unearned privileges because they are White.

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Suggested Reading

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Taras, R. (2013). ‘Islamophobia never stands still’: race, religion, and culture. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 36, 417–433. Retrieved December 3, 2014 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.