What is the difference between racism, xenophobia and homophobia?

Question

Please consider the question carefully before you answer and don’t just look the three pertinent words up on some online dictionary (although that might be a starting point).

The question is: What, in your opinion, is the difference between racism, xenophobia and homophobia?

Is one more reprehensible than the others (or, indeed, one/any of them reprehesible at all)? Are they separate phenomena, or merely separate points on the same cotinuum? What is your view? I ask this because I’ve just watched two, profoundly moving (for me), documentaries back-to-back on TV.

I aopologise that I’ve posted this question under more than once category, but I think this is applicable to more than one subject category.

The first documentary was abbout a gay guy who was beaten and killed by a skinhead gang who had set out to “do an Arab”. They ultimately killed the gay guy because he admitted that he was gay – basically admiting and proclaiming to the death that he was ‘different to them’.

The second documentary was about Bernard Manning. The message that I got from this was that he was not apologetic about the fact that he was racist. He treated people from different cultures (regardless of skin colour e.g native scottish, Irish and Frence - in contrast to being ‘English’) as ‘different’ However, he proclaimed the ‘benevolence’ of his humour throughout. In other words, the theme running throughout the documentary was that Bernard’s point was that it was ‘only a joke’.

You might argue that all are equaly pernicious; or that one type of descimination (or actions based upon that discrimination) is worse than onother. If so, please explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

I have awalys viewed them this way:
racism is a hatred of other colours of skin/cultures etc supposedly rising from an overinflated passion for a persons own country/colour etc, and refusal to accept other colours/races etc as equals.
xenophobia is a fear of foreigners
homophobia is a fear of people who engage in homosexual behaviour.
Anything with the word "phobia" in it is a fear rather than a hatred. However a lot of homophobics express hatred so in that case its a fear which creates a hatred.
I think xenophobia is different from the others as if its genuine xenophobia it should'nt create a hatred, just the fear element.
Its a good question actually as it raises the issue about labelling people and that conditions supposed to be "phobias" are used to describe people who basically use it as a form of bullying and hatred.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

I d just like to add that xenophobia is not defined as a fear of foreigners, but as a fear of anyone or anything perceived as foreign. BIG difference. By that definition, homophobia and racism are subsets of xenophobia.

Answer 4

xenophobia is a fear or aversion to foreigners, whether they are actually immigrants or whether they have been born and raised locally. Racism is a dislike (shall we say) of a race and its culture being adversley different to ones own. Homophobia is an abhorrence at "like-gendered" sexual relationships.

On the whole all three can be pigeon-holed as being a fear of the unknown or negativity at anything "outside the box".

At the end of the day, all men (and women, I know) are equal. Each with sin, neither born superior to the other. We should all get along but at times it seems some people feel a need to take their frustrations out on someone else, disparaging methinks.

Answer 5

All xenophobia is racist but not all racism is xenophobic.

Xenophobia literally means a fear of outsiders or foreigners, so firstly it is usually used incorrectly as it is used to describe somebody who hates foreigners and often not to describe somebody who is physically scared of them, so, xenophobic tendencies are aimed at foreigners(not necessarily people of a different skin colour to the xenophobic person) and racism is directed at people of different skin colours (not necessarily people of a different nationality to the person), therefore one can be racist without being xenophobic but never the other way round e.g. I could be racist to a 4th generation british asian despite them being the same nationality as me.

Homophobia is the same as xenophobia (again wrongly used) but refers to a fear of homosexuals.

You ask if I consider them to be reprehensible, the answer is yes I do, and equally so, however I have been shaped to this conclusion by the world we live in and what is normal and abnormal behaviour. If it were 1807 and not 2007 it would be antisocial, i.e against the status quo to hold politically correct views that we generally hold today, whereas now it is equally wrong to hold prejudiced views according to the majority of society.

So currently, yes they are viewed as reprehensible by the status quo but this view, as it has done before may change in the future to become more or less acceptable as the world changes.

These are obviously just my views, and I fear that if the UK starts to respect the needs of immigrants more than the indiginous population ( I am not saying that I think British people should be treated more fair, but I call for equality for all) then society will start to veer away from the pc culture and generally views will become more right wing and less tolerant of non white, non british people.

sorry just reading your additional points about bernard manning highlights my points, at his time he was seen as an exceptional comedian but now(cometh the change lol) society could not be seen to view him as that. I think racism can be seen as tongue in cheek and his views probably were only a joke and this is relatively harmless and then on the other hand it can become hurtful to others.

Many black comedians mimic peoplewith white skin colour and it can be funny, it does not offend me or make me want revenge, even though technically they are makingjokes at the expense of people with white skin. Harmless is harmless but then unfortunately it can be dangerously taken out of hand, with people looking to kill other people, which is clearly unacceptable.

Alex

Alex

Answer 6

There is no difference - they are all overused in a hysterical, confused manner. There is no such thing as homophobia - no one fears gays (meaning of phobia), but some dislike the gay act, which is their entitlement. This does not make them "homophobic" - you can accept gay people and be friends with them but still dislike the gay sexual act. Xenophobia is the fear of foreigners is it not. It is normal in todays society to fear the impact of mass immigration on the stability of our culture and infrastructure. PC people use this word for anyone who agrees with this opinion, or disagrees with the European Union. I personally love all other cultures in the world but I want to visit them on holiday in their own country not have them come here to live and work. Immigration is OK in small, easily manageable numbers like it used to be before the 50's. Racism is a word which the PC crowd do not accept can be used against whites in so called "positive discrimination", for employment etc

By the way - I see from your other questions the thing you watched was about Bernard Manning. You fail to realise that Bernard was a warm, kind hearted individual. People would have left his shows not with an urge to go out and attack Pakistanis, but with a feeling that the tensions imposed by the difference in culture had been eased- surely this is good. If the other races in our country got to know the British sense of humour and laughed at us in a good natured way as well, racial tension on their side would be narrowed as well. You could go to one of his shows and be a person who was friendly towards Pakistanis and other races.
In the 70's there was a comedy which PC has banned repeats off called "love thy neighbour" where white and black neighbours traded insults with each other and I believe it eased racial tensions. The white man ended up looking daft as the black man joked with him. Long live British humour and down with PC.

Thumbs me down but PC in government, organisations, local government is the chief cause of what you call racism, xenophobia and homophobia in our society.

Answer 7

These are the British Government Race Codes.

There is more information here:
http://united-races.blogspot.co.uk/

Answer 8

big differences race, foreigner, homosexuality