system
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human
[Star Wars] Why is the empire so xenophobic?

Why is the empire so hostile to non-humans? Is Palpatine xenophobic and just enforced his ideology once he had ultimate authority or is there another motive at work. Is it purely motivated by slavery or is it someone else like the idea of human supremacy? The Republic seemed to have complete equality between species so why is the empire able to change so rapidly into a largely human dominated society?
gpt
It's not. His Grand Vizier, the second-in-command of the Empire, is an alien. The Inquisition is full of nonhumans as well. We even have examples of other nonhumans working for the Empire in various positions.

He just has the troublesome races taken down. The Wookiees make good slaves due to their massive strength and endurance. The Lasat have been genocided for being openly rebellious, and the Geonosians were sterilized so they don't start another war.

Palpatine is the kind of person who only sees whether someone is useful or dangerous to keep around. There's no xenophobia inherent in the doctrines of the Empire, but it *is* mostly composed of the Core worlds which are mostly humanocentric, while the Separatists were mostly nonhumans from the Mid and Outer Rims. Racism is kind of implicit in the culture the Empire fosters, even though it's not officially on the books as something required.

[Note: the idea that the Empire is xenophobic comes from the OT mostly being cast of British citizens, who are overwhelmingly white. However, we see that until RotJ, the Rebellion is mostly the same way, nearly exclusively white male humans.

We see plenty of examples of the Empire working with nonhumans in the OT, with the only "racism" shown being the prison officer's reaction to Chewie. The bounty hunters were looked down on because they were *bounty hunters*, not because they were aliens.]