Negative Aspects Of Ethnocentrism Perspective
Ethnocentrism is when we are so focused on the way our culture, race, and ethnicity works that we fail to understand the way others work. For example, believing one’s own ethnic world view is the only way we can judge and understand things like customs, practices, values, standards and habits. This affects the way we perceive the world around us because it’s like walking around blind. We don’t see possibilities of other ways of thinking, seeing, understanding, and interpreting the world. A good example is when we talked about eye contact during lecture. Here we make eye contact to show respect but, in the Middle East it’s the other way around, because you have to look to the floor to show respect. An ethnocentric person would consider one of these two wrong because they are expecting other cultures to follow their own. This is wrong because people are not supposed to be so centered in their own culture.
Some negative effects of having ethnocentric perspective on the world is that it can lead to violence or discrimination within a society. An example would be Martin Luther King Jr. Martin grew up in a society where he was discriminated not allowed to go to parks, schools, churches, or even drink from water fountains just because of the color of his skin. This was due to not only racism but also being ethnocentric, because they believed that white people were superior and should be allowed more privileges. Another example would be Hitler which was also addressed in the book. Hitler believed Jews were inferior to his ethnicity and deserved to die.
Many innocent’s people’s lives were taken away in concentration camps all because he thought they weren’t a pure race. Ethnocentrism can also be exploited to foster conflict. An example of this would be when Donald trump became our president. In an article called “Ethnocentrism in the US” by Christopher Santori says, “After it was apparent Mr. Trump was going to become the next president of the United states, some people were happy and some were not so happy. What had happened in the days and weeks following the election were unimaginable.
Call me naïve, but I did not expect to see as much hate spewed upon minority groups as there was. Muslim women having their hijabs ripped off, black families waking up to hate speech spray-painted on their houses, men and women of Middle-eastern descent immediately pegged terrorists and being called that in public. Countless videos have popped up with his supporters spewing hate rhetoric in the name of Trump. “Go back to the Middle-east you terrorist f***, Trump is president now!” Things like these were said to other American citizens. If this does not scream ethnocentrism, I am not sure what does. ” This caused a major conflict in the US because of the way he spoke about Mexicans, Muslims, and African American’s. His views on these races were very ethnocentric because he believes we bring nothing but bad things to this country.
Some ways we can address ethnocentric perspective in our daily lives is when people believe you should marry someone in your same culture. People believe that your marriage will last longer since you share the same morals, beliefs and traditions. But that is not true, people need to realize that there is absolutely no proof that a marriage will last longer and that point of view is coming from being ethnocentric. In anthropological work you address ethnocentrism with Interpretive Anthropology. This is when you “seek to understand culture by studying what people think about, their ideas and the meanings that are important to them. ” There is also Culture Relativism. This is “the perspective that each culture must be understood in terms of the values and ideas of that culture and not judged by the standard of another culture. ” This concept relates to ethnocentricity because it is a way to have an open mind about cultures and treating them with respect. This means you cannot judge a culture or say one is right or wrong.
My own personal view on the world has changed because I am always growing and learning new things every day. For example, I always like to see the pros and cons to everything. It’s a way I make my decisions and handle situations in life. I also like to remind myself that every problem has its solution.
