Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism:

Defintion: characterized by or based on the attitude that one's own group is superior


A visitor to my blog asked me what I thought about ethnocentricsm. I don’t know Xolo. All I know is that he’s a soon to be psychologist. I decided to begin by looking up the official definition of ethnocentric. I officially memorized the definition of this word in h.s., but didn’t really see it in practice until I got to college. My college classmates would throw around words like ethnocentric, nationalist, patriarchy, militant, eurocentric, and other colorful words. I’m sure I was called most of these at one point in time.

So, what do I think about ethnocentrism? I think many people are mislabeled as being ethnocentric because they are proud of their culture. I am proud of whom I am and I am proud of where I come from, but that doesn’t mean that my way of doing things is better than yours. I think it’s good to be proud of who you are. We should encourage people to teach others about their culture, customs, language, and tradition. I think that’s a positive thing. In college, somebody told me that they didn’t look at the color of my skin, or my culture, or that I was a Chicano. I told them they should because I want them to know who I am. I don’t believe in being color blind. I believe that people should acknowledge each other and work together because of their differences, not in spite of their differences. In my opinion, it’s the only way to learn about each other.

Ethnocentricsm and Eurocentrism do exist. Unthinking Eurocentrism is a great book that talks about stereotyping and media images shaping the way we think. It teaches us to be critical of everyone including ourselves.

Are there ethnocentric people out there? Yes. They’re called pendejos. I dunno, I guess there are other definitions for ethnocentricsm. That’s just my take.