PSYCHOLOGY
Here’s Why So Many White People Support an Ethnocentric Worldview
What happens when you see your racial group as a gold standard
Why do so many White people oppose policies promoting racial equality? Some endorse an ethnocentric worldview, assuming their group is inherently superior. This view, unfortunately, fosters the perception that other groups are inferior — the root of racist ideas, beliefs, and opposition to policies challenging existing hierarchies. They come to believe that their customs, food, clothing, and even religion are not just different but superior.
Just as banks created the gold standard to establish economic stability, many White people have centered their culture, believing it superior and, in doing so, maintaining the racial hierarchy. Consider Europeans who began colonizing the Americas during the 1600s. Their prejudiced assessment led them to believe their cultural practices were superior to others and disregarded Indigenous peoples and their cultures as “savage” despite the technological advances, complex social hierarchies, customs, and practices developed over thousands of years before their arrival.
We can see ethnocentrism in the language used by some of the founding fathers to discuss Indigenous peoples living in the land before…
