I know what you mean. I also live in a mostly white town and the few blacks that I come into contact with usually look at me like I'm evil incarnate. That and their history as slaves have always intimidated me and kept me from really trying to be very friendly. I always feel as if they hate me because of my skin color and that they look down on me because of their own history with whites as a whole in the time of slaves and the way they were treated even after gaining freedom from slavery.

I also agree that if we are going to overcome prejudices, we will have to do it as a whole and educate ourselves and make a conscious decision not to dwell too much in past mistakes and atrocities, but to learn from them, and to not judge an entire people based on their worst "specimens" (for lack of a better word or phrase). Just like with anyone, there are good and bad people in every race of people. There are horrible caucasion Americans, horrible African-Americans, horrible Mexican-Americans, horrible Asian-Americans, Middle-Eastern Amricans. And there are good caucasion Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Asian-Americans, Middle-Eastern Americans.

Racism is bad in all forms. No one should have to feel intimidated about going up to someone because of their skin color, their clothing, their physical appearance or their religious beliefs. Likewise, nobody should feel the need to lash out at anyone because of the same reasons. Not every black is going to knock you down and rob you. Not every Asian thinks you're inferior. Not every white thinks they are superior to everyone else. Not all Latinos are illegal aliens. And not every Muslim is a terrorist. We all have the same rights as everyone else in America.

It's easy to dislike someone who doesn't look like you or doesn't believe the same things you do. But, that isn't right. Everyone has the same right to live, dress or believe whatever they want. And everyone should realize this. It seems that people only realize it when it's convenient for them. Why can't we realize it as a whole and make it convenient for EVERYONE at the same time? The problem is that it's convenient to hate people.

People seem to come together in cliques and groups and races to complain about, insult or otherwise bad-mouth and even injure people who look, sound or dress differently or believe in something different. It gives these people something in common to talk about when they can think of nothing else. This must stop. As long as there are people who do this for the sole purpose of looking good in front of their friends or to have something to talk about and rile themselves up over, then there will be no end to the prejudice. Of course, this is not the sole problem that leads to prejudice, but it is a big one. I've noticed that this sort of thing happens all the time.

It's also very juvenile and it's reminiscent of high school drama. "Did you SEE how she looked at me at lunch today?? Who does she think she is with those stupid clothes and wild-ass hair and ugly face??" If you notice when these students make fun of each other, it's because at least one person in the group dislikes the person being made fun of. And, immediately they will attack the person's clothes, physical looks, intelligence and, yes, even religion (especially if the area in which the students are from and the school that they go to is not very diverse in the way of race and/or religion).

Another problem is that hate is not instinctive. It's learned. A lot of it can be attributed to peer pressure and a desire to belong and be accepted. Casting aside one's own beliefs if they differ from those one wants to associate with most, casting aside one's usual attitude and appearance in order to sound and appear like one of the crowd is very tempting and a lot of people, not just students but adults, succumb to this.

However, peer pressure is NOT the biggest problem in this scenario. Parents are. They teach their children how to behave, they instill the right-and-wrong value system in their children. If the parents are prejudice, a child will grow up hearing only negative things about those that the parents dislike. And, as a result, they will likely grow up thinking the same things. I'm not a big fan of blaming everything on parents, because ultimately children grow up and have minds of their own. They're like people that way (XP). But, the fundamentals all start with the parents.

I think that, also, as long as parents continue to teach hatred to their children there will be a problem. Not everyone will grow up to be prejudiced because their parents were. I grew up hearing a lot of negative things about all races except whites, Native Americans, and (oddly enough, yet understandable for my family) Germans. Yet, I don't hate anyone just because they're Muslim or Middle Eastern, or just because their skin is darker than mine or their eyes slant further than mine. My grandmother was always convinced that if I went over to an Asian-American friend's house I would be raped by her older brother. She had only seen a glance of this boy before. But she knew that he was Asian-American and thought that that meant he would rape me if given half the chance and that my friend and her family were all sneaky because their eyes were slanted. I thought, even when I was young, that that was ridiculous. So, there are exceptions, there always have been and always will be.

Unfortunately, it appears that there are more of the non-exceptions (if that makes sense) in positions of influence and/or power to spread the hate. This is only from what I've seen myself of people getting on television and preaching against anyone that doesn't believe the way they do or act exactly the way they think they ought to. And it baffles me that they have so many people out there listening to them and CLAPPING for them. It also makes me very sad and very angry because it makes the situation seem all the more hopeless. *sigh*