Racism: The inability or refusal to recognize the rights, needs, dignity, or value of people of particular races or geographical origins. More widely, the devaluation of various traits of character or intelligence as 'typical' of particular peoples.
In the US racism has been an issue for many, many years and calling someone a racist is a common derogation. But is racism actually the problem that it is painted to be? Certainly there are differences in cultures and value systems that divide what are rightly or wrongly considered to be different groups of people even though the members of a supposed group are hardly identical.
For one thing, members of a group are likely to wish to remain members of that group, which includes their relatives and friends. In order to do so they must adhere to the cultural factors and system of values of that group. One can't be a member of a particular group without visibly accepting many of the things that distinguish that group from others. Not only do those things demonstrate group membership but they also indicate to other groups that the same person, perhaps embracing alien or seemingly obnoxious values, is not a member of their group.
None of any of the group members wants to adopt many of the defining characteristics of other groups. They wish to maintain their own group characteristics but in a multi-racial society that can lead to conflicts. Some cultural practices that are deeply rooted in one group are despised and unacceptable to another. Some people enjoy cockfights, others are horrified by them. Teen-age brides are common among some groups but considered child abuse by others. The dominant culture will attempt, often successfully, to eliminate practices that they find abhorrent through the educational and legal process. They will look down on those that refuse to "assimilate" and since these outliers are likely to share not only cultural dimensions but also physical appearances what is called racism is a result.
Unlike in many other cultures, where the dominant one is by definition the correct one, parts of US society have taken up the quest for a situation where all are equal in some form. In legal terms this may well now be the case. In social terms it may not. That's because the real problem isn't in race or culture. The problem is hierarchies. In the economically mobile US it's the goal of every sentient being to have access to more wealth and more stuff. This is a new dimension in the human experience.
European peasants remained peasants for their entire lives. So did their offspring. None of them received any sort of meaningful higher education. None of them were going to climb a social ladder, advance in hierarchy. Only when they left Europe for the Americas, Australia, South Africa, India, were they able to join an hierarchy that led to social advancement and wealth they could have never enjoyed in Europe. Of course they did this by eliminating or subjugating the native populations.
The issue at hand isn't racism, it's being relegated to a lower level of the social hierarchy. This couldn't be more obvious. In the US, individuals of minority races or ethnicities are scattered all over the upper levels of the social hierarchy. They hold high elected political office, lucrative positions in business and industry, dominant places in entertainment. Of course this isn't true of all of them. In the US scheme of things, those at the top have climbed over those below them. For leaders to exist there must be followers. Being born to a leader and member of the upper level of the social hierarchy is the best ticket to success, now as it has always been, in the US and elsewhere.
Nonetheless, those with talent and drive can climb the hierarchical ladder regardless of their genetic makeup, just as we all must if that happens to be our goal.
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