Fear of Outsiders

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Xenophobia derived from the Greek word for stranger, means the fear of outsiders or foreigners or of anything that is strange and/or foreign (Winters). Foreigners tend to scare people because people usually do not like change and it takes awhile to adapt to and understand how and why people are the way they are. People fear outsiders because the fear of otherization and the unknown scares people and “turns them off” from those who are different, and causes people to form stereotypes from events that have happened throughout the past. The otherization of people that are different scares people because seeing the world in a different way widens the diversity of lifestyles that we are not aware of (Harris). America prides itself on being a melting pot of cultures, but how we react to newcomers is often at odds with that self-image (Winters). If people stopped responding with passive complicity to carefully crafted messages designed to "otherize" those whose needs deserve fair treatment and justice and those whose voices speak for them, certain media outlets and popular personalities might soon be out of business (Harris). When people are different and new, people get scared because they are not aware of the lifestyles they live. The unknown is a fear to many, and when people are different and act different, people become scared until they become known to how their lifestyles are. In Salem, during the witch trials, people feared the unknown and nowadays people fear the unknown in the same ways. For example communities in Europe charged outsiders with witchcraft in an effort to control them (Hines). Also, in the old country, you did not wander from place to place. The people who did were linked to the occults (Hines). In Puritan tim... ... middle of paper ... ...ntinue too. People fear outsiders because the fear of otherization and the unknown scares people and “turns them off” from those who are different, and causes people to form stereotypes from events that have happened throughout the past. Works Cited Harris, Colin. "Why Do We Fear Others Who Are Not Like Us?” Ethnics Daily, 20 June 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2014. Hines, Michael. "SOCIAL PRESSURE AND WITCHCRAFT." SOCIAL PRESSURE AND WITCHCRAFT. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2014. Iyer, Deepa. "When Will We Stop the Scapegoating?" Campaign Stops When Will We Stop the Scapegoating Comments. New York Times Company, 06 Dec. 2011. Web. 06 Mar. 2014. Stokes, Lori. "Decoding the Salem Witch Trials: Part 3." US History Scene. N.p., 22 May 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. Winters, Jeffrey. "Why We Fear The Unknown." Psychology Today. Sussex Directories, 1 May 2002. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.

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