Ethnocentrism / and Discrimination in the World

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is a major reason for divisions amongst members of different ethnicities, races, and religious groups in society. Ethnocentrism is the belief of superiority is one's personal ethnic group, but it can also develop from racial or religious differences.

Ethnocentric individuals believe that they are better than other individuals for reasons based solely on their heritage. Clearly, this practice is related to problems of both racism and prejudice.

While many people may recognize the problems, they may not realize that ethnocentrism occurs everywhere and every day at both the local and political levels.

Ethnocentrism in History

Present Day Politics

To solidify the definition of ethnocentrism, looking at the present day politics of the United States is helpful. With instances occurring since its conception, the United States has often thought of itself as more powerful, more economically sound, and just generally "better" than other nations. This has been shown by the country's tendency to dabble in situations occurring in other nations, such as the country's current involvement with affairs in the Middle East.

Although the idea of every citizen in the United States belonging to one ethnicity is certainly debatable, since the country has citizens who originally came from all over the world, the feeling of national pride can stand in for a pure ethnicity in this case. 

European Imperialism

Imperialism, the practice of taking over other lands, was heavily practiced by Europe starting in the sixteenth century. As most individuals know, the colonies in the United States were one of the regions that the Europeans tried to control from overseas. They also overtook lands in Africa. They believed both Africa and the Americas to be primitive societies based on hunting and farming, and felt that they needed to take over these nations in order to bring them up to speed with modern technologies.

Traces of this sense of European ethnocentrism are still evident today. For example, in schools in Europe, world studies courses tend to focus almost solely on the history of the United States and Europe, and largely ignore other parts of the world.