In public discourse, however usually inside psychological literature, racism is recurrently portrayed as a pure tendency rooted in human nature. We usually hear how racism is the pure consequence of our tendency to concern strangers, or the opposite.
However, this assumption is fake as a result of it conflates xenophobia with acts of racism. Xenophobia is the human tendency to be afraid of strangers and appears to be rooted in human nature. However, the query turns into how we classify folks as strangers. This adjustments over time. Therefore, the classification of individuals as strangers is culturally constructed, with racism being considered one of its many kinds.
To higher perceive the excellence between xenophobia as a pure behavioral expression versus racism as a socially constructed behavioral expression, we should return to when the vast majority of humankind lived their lives as hunter-gatherers. In these days, merely being a member of a distinct tribe meant that you just had been deemed a stranger. While folks of one other tribe phenotypically seemed the identical, for instance, based mostly on pores and skin shade, hair shade, and facial options, their outfits or language had been totally different. Therefore, based mostly on these distinctive traits, folks had been judged as strangers, triggering xenophobia.
Thousands of years later, we developed religions, and folks started judging others as strangers based mostly on spiritual beliefs. Very not too long ago, roughly 500 years in the past, racism was invented by European colonists who began classifying folks with totally different pores and skin colours as totally different from one another. Consequently, as a result of European colonialism had such an amazing influence on many of the world, this unscientific classification system based mostly on the thought of “race” globalized, leading to xenophobia expressed by racism.
To perceive why we’re naturally xenophobic, have a look at the animal kingdom. For instance, chimpanzees, our closest kin, turn into extremely alert and nervous once they encounter chimps from one other tribe. But many different animals additionally present wariness when encountering species members from totally different tribes, comparable to wolves and lions. As a outcome, these animals’ tribes usually declare and defend their territory in opposition to one another. Therefore, we are able to confidently say that xenophobia, as a behavioral common, arose very early.
However, this does not imply that xenophobia is affordable or nonetheless adaptive. What might have labored as soon as could be extremely problematic and even damaging now. For instance, contemplating that our advanced societies at the moment are extremely numerous, we might query if it nonetheless is smart to guage folks as strangers based mostly on tribal options comparable to religions. Additionally, as a result of advanced societies now consist of individuals of all colours, it doesn’t make sense to guage folks as “racially” totally different based mostly on this superficial attribute.
I hear you asking, if xenophobia and its many expressions comparable to racism don’t make sense anymore, then why is it nonetheless so prevalent? In psychology, we name this minimal group paradigm (Diehl, 1990), which means that it doesn’t matter on what foundation one creates categorical distinctions. Creating classes of individuals ends in ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation — that’s, any categorical distinction will suffice. If, for instance, I stand in entrance of considered one of my lessons and divide folks up based mostly on some nonsense attribute — folks with a backpack versus folks with one other kind of bag — instantly after this separation into two teams, college students will begin to expertise favorable sentiments towards their ingroup and extra ambivalence and weariness towards the outgroup. This is an exceptionally highly effective tendency of human beings that’s common, which implies we see it amongst human beings worldwide.
However, as talked about earlier than, the explicit distinctions on which xenophobia rests are socially constructed. They are made up by us and altered all through historical past. Race and racism had been non-existent throughout most of human historical past. The Romans and Egyptians had rulers of all pores and skin colours. Race as the explicit distinction that we all know at present didn’t but exist.
Similarly, having freckles or being tall are human options which can be at present not used as categorical distinctions. However, the second we systematically spotlight these arbitrary distinctions, folks will start to turn into xenophobic based mostly on them. Consistently portraying folks with freckles as the opposite and totally different would end in the identical downside as racism towards that group of individuals. Simply lumping folks into social classes inevitably creates some type of xenophobia.
Hence, the targets of xenophobia are arbitrary and fluid. They can change at any second. We can observe it with geopolitical occasions: The second Muslims had been repeatedly portrayed as the opposite throughout George Bush’s battle on terror, stigmatization of Muslims elevated globally. An identical impact could possibly be noticed when racism in opposition to Jews in Nazi Germany elevated after the systematic classification of Jews as “The Other.” Societies which have been harmonious for a whole bunch and even hundreds of years can all of a sudden turn into severely divided by specializing in (made up) social classes and portraying teams as totally different from one another.
The European colonial powers had been exceptionally environment friendly in utilizing this human tendency. Take Malaysia for example. The British would pit the Malay, Chinese, and Indian ethnic teams in opposition to one another by assigning them to totally different societal roles, leading to them changing into divided and xenophobic towards one another based mostly on ethnic distinctions comparable to faith, pores and skin shade, and the notorious concept of race. We can nonetheless observe extreme intergroup discrimination in Malaysia, a society that continues to be divided alongside ethnic strains relationship from colonial occasions (Goh, 2008).
Racist classifications set off our continual tendency to turn into xenophobic.
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That brings us to why xenophobia is so usually used and abused by political rulers. The reply is easy: Xenophobia is an environment friendly instrument to maintain folks divided. Colonial powers knew this early on. By separating folks based mostly on superficial traits, comparable to pores and skin shade, after which assigning qualities to those options (comparable to being civilized vs. barbarian, or clever vs. backward), folks began to imagine that they had been totally different from one another based mostly on these extremely unscientific classifications. Hence, xenophobia had a number of benefits to these in energy:
- (a) Xenophobia ensured that individuals in colonies would keep divided and never be part of arms to rise in opposition to an elite that tended to oppress them for his or her acquire. Historically, political elites enriched themselves whereas different folks of their societies lived comparatively impoverished lives. By protecting the folks divided and afraid of one another, they might not be part of arms to overthrow their oppressors.
- (b) Xenophobia diverts the blame. By blaming folks of a distinct faith, race, or pores and skin shade for one’s troubles, political elites could make you assume that unhealthy conditions should not because of the authorities’s mismanagement however due to folks categorised as totally different. Take Covid-19 for example. In many international locations, China and Chinese folks had been blamed for the virus, and folks began to concern those that look Chinese. This was an exceptionally environment friendly solution to divert the blame from the usually complete mismanagement of governments to assist their populations take care of Covid-19.
- (c) Finally, xenophobia advantages exploitation. To get again to the roots of racism, when colonizers portrayed non-white, non-European folks as totally different and sometimes sub-human centuries in the past, they created the psychological justification to oppress and exploit the non-European world as a result of one might merely assume that it was pure to rule over individuals who can not govern themselves. This successfully eradicated any sense of cognitive dissonance throughout the colonists that will in any other case cease them from harming different teams of individuals.
In abstract, to eradicate racism, we should turn into conscious that our ancestors invented the notion of race for self-fulfilling causes rooted in unscientific assumptions. Educating ourselves by understanding our historical past of inventing arbitrary social classifications that outcome within the xenophobic rejection of others could also be step one towards a world rooted in egalitarianism as an alternative of social hierarchies.