Racism as a word only really came into popular usage during the 1930s, and specifically in relation to the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the Nazis and American hatred of other European immigrants.8 We will almost certainly always have a degree of ethnocentrism in human societies but to conflate this with racism proper is lazy and dangerous. Ethnocentrism can be overcome, but overt racism or the idea of permanent hierarchical racial difference is a chasm much deeper and more difficult to surmount.
