Distinguish between prejudice, ethnocentrism, and racism. Give real world examples.

Even though prejudice, ethnocentrism, and racism are interrelated, there are differences among these concepts. Sociologist Richard Schaefer defines prejudice as “a negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority”. Ethnocentrism on the other hand refers to “the tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others” (Schaefer 2006, pp 71, 245).

Ethnocentrism is a major reason for divisions amongst members of different ethnicities, races, and religious group in society. Ethnocentric individuals believe that they are better than other individuals for reasons based solely on their heritage. Clearly, this practice is related to problems of both racism and prejudice. While many people may recognize the problems, they may not realize that ethnocentrism occurs everywhere and every day at both the local and political levels.

To solidify the definition of ethnocentrism, looking at the present day politics of the United States is helpful. With instances occuring since its conception, the United States has often thought of itself as more powerful, more economically sound, and just generally "better" than other nations. This has been shown by the country's tendency to dabble in situations occuring in other nations, such as the country's current involvement with affairs in the Middle East.

One of the most well-known and the most horrible examples of ethnocentrism to ever occur was during Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler decided that he hated Jews, as well as some other groups of people, and had many innocent people slaughtered in concentration camps. They did not deserve the torture that they received, and this was clearly an extreme case of ethnocentrism. While prejudice certainly leads to problems, very rarely in history has ethnocentrism led to the mass slaughter of millions of innocent people (Examples.com).

Prejudice can result sometimes from ethnocentrism, or however it may result from racism. Prejudice, in simple words, is referred to as a conclusion drawn by anyone without judging the actions of a person or thing. The word is mostly used talk about a premature judgment about some person or group based on religion, profession or any other feature associated to that person or group.

Racism is a form of prejudice and is the belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior (Schaefer, 2006). For example, a head teacher who refuses to admit an Arab student into his or her school purely on the basis of his race is engaging in racism.

The major difference between prejudice and racism is that a person can be prejudice even if he is not a racist but a person cannot be referred to as racist if he is not prejudice. Racism is based on a decision that is mostly premature and is based on the way a specific system is working in a country or a society. Prejudice, is also a premature thought but that is mostly associated with an individual only. Also, prejudice does not pose any threat to someone while racism might involve violence and threat to a group of people belonging to specific race (Andrew, 2011).