Discrimination An Outbreak of Bigotry

Everyone says it's only human nature to despise one's neighbor. If that's true, what can governments around the world do to control such hatred?

An epidemic of ethnic hatred is sweeping the world, dismaying and perplexing fair-minded people who are at a loss to explain it. Why are Jewish cemeteries in France and Italy being desecrated? Why are Turks in Bulgaria and Koreans in Japan viewed as infections in the national bloodstream? Why do Africa's Hutu and Tutsi tribes continue to slaughter one another? Social scientists are not much help with such questions. They generally regard ethnocentrism -- a preference for one's own group -- as an innate human characteristic, and they have produced little significant research on the virulent course these feelings often take.

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