ABSTRACT
Race and ethnicity have intertwined but not identical meanings. Race designates groups of people according to their biological characteristics, such as skin pigment, facial features, or skeletal frame. These differences can carry with them culturally based prejudices—racism—that assume physical differences signal inferior or superior intellectual, emotional, or other traits. Ethnicity refers to culturally determined identities attributed to population groups, such as custom, ancestry, region, history, religion, cuisine, physical appearance, language, or other characteristics. The belief in the inherent superiority of one ethnicity relative to other groups is called ethnocentrism. Like racism, ethnocentrism creates artificial hierarchies based on differences among groups. Both play on xenophobia of the “others” to strengthen identity and cohesion in the “self” group. The “self” group also denigrates the “others” as barbarians or subhumans (Brace, 2005; Eliav-Feldon et al., 2009).
