Talk:Xenophobia

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• American Xenophobia is Nothing New Before It's News

Sophie^Wilder 00:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Red Squirrel Argument

Is anyone outside the UK familiar with the Red Squirrel Argument used by xenophobes to promote isolationism? In the UK we often hear it from older people as a lesson on conservation and invasive species, but it has since developed into an analogy for people. I'll explain below:

The Red Squirrel's population declines and loses its habitat to the invasive North American Eastern Grey due to four factors

1. The Reds have memory problems and frequently lose track of their food stores; the Greys do not have this problem.
2. The Greys can eat more kinds of food so are not under threat when there's shortages.
3. The Greys carry a virus that they are immune to but which kills Reds.
4. Reds are unable to breed when under continual stress, so the building of main roads has an effect. Greys can better cope.

Despite these four points, xenophobic British groups have an alternative reason for why the Reds are under threat: Greys carry disease and will kill Reds that survive. This inaccurate observation (that they're racial enemies) is then used in regards to human beings to argue that multiculturalism/immigration will lead to a very specific white extinction scenario. --Forerunner (talk) 17:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Stormfront seems quite obsessed with red squirrels (look on Google) and this Telegraph story has some wonderful comments. I'm not sure if there's anything that could be dignified by the term "argument" there. Annquin (talk) 17:47, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

It is far from obvious, as often suggested by certain political activists, that racism or nationalism and xenophobia tend to go together.

Please explain? I thought racism and nationalism are pretty firmly linked to xenophobia. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 19:16, 29 August 2020 (UTC)