Humans have survived on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years because we organized ourselves into groups, and this concept was evidently successful.

An individual needs the group; the group doesn’t necessarily need the individual.

Various Considerations of the Group.

The Group and Racism

This concept is quite straight forward and briefly explained. We experience and provide security, familiarity, safety, and empathy within our own group. This does not apply to people from other groups. Historically, people from other groups (of strangers) have almost always been a threat and thus frighten us. To avoid a threat, it was extremely important to quickly recognize whether another person belongs to our group or not. How do we recognize this? First, of course, visually, and it is immediately clear: A different skin colour, different facial features, or hair, cannot be a member of my group. So our group instincts immediately kick in: we feel potentially threatened, suspicious, rather aggressive, and lack empathy. Ideally, this stranger would disappear again so that we feel safe again. Here, too, only our intellect can override these instincts and thereby change our behaviour — At least until everyone includes people of a different skin colour in their own group, and we therefore no longer identify them as outsiders.

However, we are still a long way from this in most societies/groups, and it is easy to build on this innate tendency by imposing more differences that further emphasize this strangeness and simultaneously fuel fear and aggression.