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As another poster mentioned, "people will find just about any reason to believe they are better than other people".

Your intuition about racism/xenophobia is probably correct. But that's not the interesting question, given how widespread it is. What is more thought-provoking is why did this kind of behavior evolve? What was the advantage? Is it still advantageous today?

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> why did this kind of behavior evolve?

It's just an extension of the competitive nature of humans/social animals. Social animals despise animals of the same species that are of different social groups. They all want their social group to prevail, and will attack (actively or passively, e.g. by refusing culture) the others. Humans like to think they are above this 'primitive' instinct, but I think the vast majority of human behavior can be summed up by this.

I'm sorry, I don't find that terribly thought provoking. Xenophobia is a lazy heuristic, and the people who employ it simply don't understand their own interests.

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