Are the words racist, prejudiced, xenophobic, stereotyping, and generalizing all synonymous to you?

They are all symptoms of ignorance and fear.

@NerdyKeith Do you use them interchangeably? Are they all equally bad? How do you define them?

Lets go through the terms and what each of them mean to me, (IMHO), in the context of my personal life experience:

Racism is judging someone based on their apparent race, and while it is a form of stereotyping, based on prejudice and generalizing, it is not the only action that fits those terms.

Prejudice is a pre-judging of a person or group based on pre-concieved notions. Although it often occurs in a context of racism, it is not exclusively a racist term. I’ve seen prejudicial action based on religion, politics, style of dress, and even music preference.

Xenophobia is literally a fear of someone or something different. It’s what causes a fear of anyone we don’t know, or anything that’s not familiar. This is a basic human reaction that causes panic in situations ranging from new neighbors moving in, to discomfort with new office procedures, to the extreme of waging war on the neighboring tribe because they display tattoos that are different from “ours”.

Stereotyping is a type of false logic that works like this: John belongs to Group A and drives 5 mph below the speed limit. Mary also belongs to Group A, therefore she must always drive 5 mph below the speed limit.

Generalization: All these behaviors are forms of generalization, which is an assumption that the attributes of one member of a group would necessarily apply to every member of the group. I sometimes use generalizations in discussions (and in my posts here on Fluther), but when I use them I am very aware that it is a generalization, and will not necessarily apply to every member of the group, and I am extremely careful to state that I am speaking of the group “in general”, and not specifically any member.

@JLeslie If I am talking about specific forms of discrimination such as racism; I will use the term racist. I will not use the the term racist for other forms of discrimination.

But I do define them all as bigotry.

However if you want specific definitions of each, this is how I would define each like so:

Racist: prejudice and unfair treatment solely based on ones race
Prejudiced: treating any person of a different class, group, creed or culture as inferior.
Xenophobic: prejudice and unfair treatment solely based on the country one comes from
Stereotyping: to make an assumption on a person based on their race, culture, group, class etc
Generalising: to make a blanket statement about a person based on their race, culture, group, class etc

In addition, racism and xenophobia are certainly different types of discriminant. I would define generalising and stereotyping as pretty much the same thing and therefore they are synonymous to one another.

Now to be prejudiced, that is actually an umbrella term for the behaviour of all forms of discrimination and therefore yes it is synonymous with racism, homophobia, sexisms, stereotyping etc.

No. They differ significantly in meaning. And while they may be interchangeable in limited circumstances, the instances when they are not considerably outnumber such cases. You should thank @Yetanotheruser

I’m less concerned about some minor stereotyping or generalizing than I am racism & predudice. While stereotyping is not cool, there usually is, at least a grain of truth in many stereotypes, that how they got started to begin with. As I mentioned in another thread I make blonde jokes about myself all the time, joke that I am half brilliant and half completely ditzy depending on what side of my brain I am using in the moment. haha
Generally, ( pun intended ) certain stereotypes do contain more than a grain of truth, not all, but many.

Cats usually are more aloof than dogs, dogs smell and are loud and sloppy animals, a lot of older people are grumpy old farts, a lot of young males are hyper sexual, a lot of younger females are overly emotional drama queens. There are facts and then there are, outright, innappropriate stereotypes. Discrimination ( pun intended again ) between commonality and stereotype is key IMO.

@stanleybmanly I think maybe you are making a wrong assumption about the intention of my Q.

@Coloma Discrimination is another good word to throw in the mix actually.

@JLeslie OK, I’ll add in discrimination. The classic definition, according to Webster, to mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of (something), or to make a distinction.

To discriminate is not necessarily a bad thing. When our kids were younger, my wife and I were extremely discriminating when it came to our their friends. We discriminated mostly on the basis of their behavior, and how it related to the type of behavior we wanted our kids to learn.

Almost everyone can be discriminating when it comes to the type of employment they will accept. How much does it pay? Is there room for advancement? Is it a job that I can agree with (or at least compromise) morally? These are valid reasons for discrimination.

When discrimination becomes bad is when it is done to a person or persons on the basis of race, gender, gender identification, ethnicity, or other personal qualities over which we have no control.

No. For one thing, racism is obviously about race, perceived race, and/or things that are racialized (as certain acts or cultures are even if there’s no actual correlation to race). Xenophobia, on the other hand, is about regional and cultural differences. These are both kinds of prejudice, but there are other kinds of prejudice as well. And while prejudices often involve stereotyping, they don’t have to. The same thing goes for generalizing. It’s often involved in prejudice, but it doesn’t have to be. Also, some generalizations are innocent.

Nope. And I hate that they are synonymous. It just confuses any situation.

Not at all. They’re all distinctly different and I would never use them interchangeably.

Prejudice simply involves a prejudgment—judging something or someone before you have the facts—and it is not necessarily negative at all. I might, for example, be prejudiced in favor of female gynecologists (I’m not, but I might be), but that would in no way make me a racist.

Discrimination is a basic survival skill. If our ancestors hadn’t learned to tell the safe plants from the poisonous ones, or “our” tribe from “their” tribe, they wouldn’t have lasted very long. (Tribalism is a curse of our time, but it is still a survival skill.)

Ignorant misuse of words does a great deal more harm than most people suppose. It’s like pouring static into the connection between transmitter and receiver: at best, it impairs the communication, and at worst it doesn’t just prevent it—rather, it conveys a completely wrong message.

Definitely not.

racist: ascribing negative traits to all or most people belonging to a certain race

prejudiced: ascribing negative traits to all or most people belonging to a certain group

xenophobic: ascribing negative traits to all or most people who do not belong to one’s community

stereotyping: ascribing certain traits to all or most people belonging to a certain group

generalizing: making broad assumptions based on specific cases

I asked the question, because I think they are all very different, but all the time I feel like people define the words differently than me. I wasn’t sure if I was assuming incorrectly how people use the words or what? Especially, the word “racist.” It seems to me that people quickly throw that word around when it isn’t warranted.

The following is how I define them:

Racist: Someone who believes that people from a group had specific negative traits and behaviors. That the people from that group are born that way, and it is not changeable. It can be taken to extremes where the racist wants to rid their community or the planet of the target group. I use the word racist even when not talking about race for simplicity. For example, if I see someone hates Asians, Hispanics, and Jews, only Asians out of the three are a race, but it’s a shortcut instead of saying the person is racist, antisemitic, and hates Hispanics.

Prejudice: Prejudging. It does not mean the person is not open to being proven wrong in his prejudgements, as opposed to racists who are closed. Prejudices might come from experience, stereotypes, or only having partial information.

Xenophobic: a fear of people dissimilar to themselves.

Stereotyping: attributing certain traits and behaviors to a group. Its similar to generalizing and even prejudging.

Generalizing: assigning certain attributes to the majority of a group.

Discriminating: being selective based on needs.