Racism

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Humans are animals, and animals view 'different' as a threat to survival. Competition for food (or other resources); being killed as prey, etc. But all other animals don't moralise or worry about it.

Humans do. We have an extra development to our brains. We analyse. We value. We establish, as groups, what we find acceptable and not acceptable.

For most of our history, we've feared, fought, demonised 'the different'. The funny thing though, probably not other races though. A thousand years ago, when would the average white person have met the average yellow man? Most of the fighting was against other members of the same race. The differences were most likely just different tribes, over the same resources. That's just the reality of limited mobility.

When racism became a problem, as just one more example of 'the different', was not only when the different races met, but only when the meetings were problematic. Inter-racial trading happened, often amicably.

The last several centuries have seen more racism as tribal and feudal localised identities gave way to nationalism. This is a result of expansionism and imperialism, and the inevitable hate that goes with preying on others.

But if one thing is constant, it's 'change'. The more knowledge we get, through science, the less justification there can be for racism. For one thing, we now know that there is only one surviving human species - Homo sapiens. Benny Hill, Jacky Chan, Morgan Freeman... all Homos.

There's value in fearing 'the different'. There are dangerous people in the world. But racism is just laziness. Chances are that the serial killer who just attacked you was the same race as you, and the people who saved you were of some other race.

My wife is a different 'race'. But she speaks the same dialect of the same language as me because she was born in the same country as me and is of the same culture as me (Australian).

I even don't understand racism. As someone explained on page 1, it's emotional and it's just "that person is different".

I've received racial abuse from a young age, because I'm a red head/ginger.

I don't understand what's wrong with a simple hair colour? People dye their hair the same colour as my natural hair colour, but they don't get bullied for it. The world is stupid.

I dye mine now though because of the abuse I got for it, and it's been 1 less thing to be picked on in life about.

OP: I don't get it either. Regardless of where it stems from its irrational.

Just because something you said might be racist, doesn't mean you are a racist, and I don't think Verdandi was calling her racist (correct me if I'm wrong). These kinds of phrases are floating around and people pick them up without analyzing what might actually lie behind their popularity. People who are not the target of some type of prejudice aren't usually very good at detecting it. That doesn't mean the person who said it wouldn't disagree with the underlying racist (or sexist, or homophobic, etc.) statement if it was pointed out to them.
Anyway, that was an interesting link. I always found the multicolored people lists slightly annoying, but for no particular reason I could put my finger on. How it can sound dismissive or trivializing, though, is something I can definitely see now that it's been pointed out.

I probably am a racist, given all the extra meanings it has to the left in today's society - who are usually the loudest criers of the "racist" accusation.

To most normal people though, I'm not. Funny, that.

Anyway, I, for one, am glad to see that AutisticBelle has no prejudice against draenei or trolls.

Red hair isn't a race, but if you look up some old anti-Irish cartoons, it certainly seems Irish was once basically seen as a different (and inferior) race by the English. I suppose some anti-ginger sentiment could be an echo of that.
Neanderthals had a gene for red hair (a different one than what appears in modern humans, though). Maybe they were the original hated redheads.

Also, in case anyone hasn't seen it, here's a video about prejudice.

EDIT: Oh dear, I think I might be hijacking, I'll shush now.