Ethnic Relationships Around the World

Ethnic Relationships Around the World

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> The word "ethnic" is defined as "relating to a

>sizable group of people sharing a common and

>distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic,

>or cultural heritage; relating to a people not

>Christian or Jewish; heathen." By the definition

>alone, it is no surprise that ethnic relations around

>the world have always been a source of tension. Family

>members cannot live in the same house because of

>differences, sometimes resulting in anger, violence

>and bloodshed. One can see that the human population,

>too, is always up in arms about some differences,

>whether real or perceived. The big problem is that

>people do not take the time to find anything out about

>the other ethnic groups, or if they do find something

>out, they only focus on the unpleasant, not the good.

> Saddam Hussein's trial, which is going on now in

>Baghdad, is an example of ethnic differences. His

>actions are similar to what happened in South Africa

>with apartheid. People are murdered and tortured not

>based on who they are or what they are capable of

>doing, but rather on the color of the skin or what

>side of the country they live in. The early years of

>the United States were filled with such differences

>also. People were judged on the color of their skin.

>The darker the skin, the lower one was treated. Even

>when the person was black, the lighter blacks were

>given jobs such as servants and nannies, while the

>darker blacks were forced to work in the fields and do

>manual labor. The belief seemed to be that the dark

>skin made a person less intelligent and less

>civilized. With modern communication, what happens in

>South Africa doesn't stay in South Africa anymore, so

>the world has sort of forced South Africa into

>restructuring. The United States used violence, as in

>the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, to

>attempt to force changes in their ethnic differences.

> Despite the efforts of both countries and their

>attempt to straighten up the country's acts of

>discrimination, individual discrimination still

>exists. I'm sure it always will. People have opinions

>and their main opinion is that their opinion is

>derived from some higher power and should be blindly

>believed and followed by everybody.

> Projection uses the belief that people are either

>good or evil. A person who projects will not admit any

>fault in himself because that would put him into the

>bad category. So to keep himself from being thought of

>as bad, he sometimes goes to extreme measures and

>thoughts. This results in the behavior called racism.

>A "scapegoat" is the person who is blamed for any

>actions that the projectionist doesn't care for.

>Scapegoats change. The African Americans were always

>blamed for crime and unemployment, but in recent

>years, they have remained the scapegoat for violent

>crime but another ethnic group, the Hispanics, have

>become the scapegoat for unemployment.

> Affirmative action was put into place as an attempt

>to end segregation in the United States. This action

>forced employers and schools to have a representative

>portion of all races and ethnic backgrounds. This

>system worked well in the beginning but it was

>repealed for some obvious faults. Affirmative action

>was based on the cognitive-dissonance theory, which

>states that if behavior is changed, then attitudes

>will often change to become consistent with the new

>behavior. What affirmative action, as well as other

>institutionalized minority assistance programs, has

>done is created a new kind of racism. Symbolic racism,

>a subtle form of modern discrimination, refers to a

>pattern where people are not overly racist but oppose

>any social policy that would reduce racial

>inequalities.

> Going back to the projection theory, religious and

>sexual discrimination is strong with this group. Even

>though there is