I called out someone's comments as racist when someone decided to correct me and say that the term was incorrect. According to this person, the word racism only seems to apply when referring to another race (e.g. Sub-Saharan African, White European, East-Asian, South-Asian, Native American, etc.)
What is the similar term then for hatred towards a particular ethnic group? (E.g. Italian, Serbian, Sri Lankan, etc.)
Best Answer
Racism can have many definitions and depends on the definition of race you're using. Here's several definitions from dictionary.com:
As you can see, one of these can be segregation by skin colour, another can be by ethnic group, so you can use racism.
More generally, racism is a form of prejudice, hate or intolerance, so you could use any of those words. If it's hatred against foreigners in general, you can use xenophobia.