Background America has built its reputation globally as the “melting pot” of the world. Today, the United States has one of the most racially and ethnically diverse populations in the world, comprised of 63.7% White, 17.1% Hispanic and Latino, 13.2% African Americans, as well as millions of other people of varying racial and ethnic backgrounds. (Census). Ironically, it is this ethnic and racial diversity that has produced centuries of prosperity and cooperation, as well as pervasive racism and xenophobia. However, xenophobia, the fear and hatred of strangers or anything strange or foreign due to a feared sense of threat, is unsurprisingly common across the world (Merriam-Webster ). EB Dubois, this fear can be identified as internalized. xenophobia. The ideology behind internalized xenophobia is that historical and current systems of violence and oppression by whites against blacks send messages of black inferiority that are so extremely powerful that the white population and many blacks succumb to them, ultimately by defining oneself by them. (Dewlap). This means that within a culture, such as that specified by Dubois for example, black culture, the systems created by the majority that actively degrade black Americans become so pervasive and harmful that members of that culture begin to fear each other. each other just as much as the majority fears. them due to their subconscious conditioning. An example of this in contemporary society would be the socioeconomic ghettoization of Black Americans in communities where it is incredibly difficult to escape poverty. As a result, not only do the media portray black people as criminals, but, more importantly, members of these communities have internalized this message. as part of themselves, causing internal cultural conflicts and the belief that this may be true even within the culture itself. Now, to establish the existence of xenophobia as a trend, it is important to look at history to understand its causes in particular. First, when looking at primary xenophobia, the greatest example of which is evident in chimpanzees, it is important to turn to the research When Europeans crossed the sea to reach North America, they were arrived with strong ideas about who actually had control of the land and who neither did nor deserved it. Those who fit the latter classification were the Native Americans, the indigenous population of North America. Upon their arrival, the settlers triggered a decades-long phenomenon that I call geographic xenophobia. In this phenomenon, instead of race or ethnicity and the overriding need to remain within the established group, it is the geographic composition of the group that matters. Native Americans were not murdered, driven from their land, romanticized, forcibly assimilated, artificially bound, raised white, and otherwise eliminated as Indians, but as rightful owners and occupants (Wolfe). European settlers arrived knowing that Native Americans existed. However, they expected some complacency in evicting them from their lands under the pretext that they rightfully belonged to them, as God (Thornton) had established. When they realized that the Native Americans would not leave their lands without a fight, geographic xenophobia appeared in the sense that the settlers feared that they would not be able to preserve their "gift from God ».”