Categories

Xenophobia – an Overview

Stranger or Immigrant Xenophobia

People of this category express their hate or dislike to people who are not in the same country as them. For this reason, they tend to avoid stores and businesses where foreigners or other outsiders’ shop. They also avoid neighborhoods mostly populated by immigrants or people of different skin colors and will make negative or derogatory remarks about people of other cultures or countries.

Cultural Xenophobia

Someone expressing cultural xenophobia will make rude remarks about someone traditional clothing, refuse to listen to music from other cultures or watch tv shows and movies in other languages, reject food from other cultures without trying it, and believe products that are manufactured in other countries are inferior.

It is natural and possibly instinctive to want to protect the interest of the group by eliminating threats to those interests. Unfortunately, this natural instinct can lead to violence and cause members of the groups to even attack those who are perceived as different, even though they actually pose no legitimate threat at all.