What is your theory on why racism exists?

Racism exists because people are racist

I mentioned stereotypes and you went on a rant that they are racist. They are not. For instance....Italians like pasta. It's cultural but also a stereotype. I'd bet not ALL Italians like pasta but they are known for it. And thinking Italians like pasta does not mean you are racist. You ARE stereotyping them however. Not that that is a bad thing. It's just accepting that each culture has it's own identity.

And assholes come in every color.

A lack of understanding regarding that people come from different places and upbringings. Not everyone has had the same privileges. Different cultures places emphasis on different values - leading to inevitable negative stereotypes.

1) I never said that stereotypes are racist.

2) As for why I replied to you in the first place, it was because of this..."TC is about stereotypes....that isn't racism. 7

As a child, we do what we see the adults like us do. Then you hit puberty, suddenly realize you like the way others look(attraction) and therefore you become very conscious of how you may look to others. Now you probably admired adults that you were around as a child, and maybe some were bigots. For males, they looked big, aggressive, in control. So you do as they did in order to look like what your early visions of strong, right, man were. I cant really say for females as I am a male. But I don't believe stereotyping is natural, hate is natural, or ignorance is natural. We come into life a sponge and absorb what is around us consistently imo.

Geeze you always go on rants. And you extrapolate things very strangely. The opening post was talking about stereotypes. Stereotypes do not mean racism. They can be used for racism by individuals to justify their own racism. But stereotypes are NOT in and of themselves a 100% correlation to the word racism. Which is my point and which you fail to understand.

Ignorance IS a big part of racism. Most racists are those that have very little to do with people that are different to themselves. Therefore they see them as just that. Those who get out in the world and assimilate with different demographics tend to be able to look beyond the difference.

@MrGeezer: Okay, I see what you're saying now. There are positive stereotypes that help us on a daily basis and that's fine. But what about negative stereotypes? They are of no use. All they really do is spread hate and cause misconceptions. You can't justify negative stereotypes.

The opening post EXPLICITLY MENTIONED IGNORANCE.

So0, again, that's kind of weird. The TC actually WASN'T all about stereotypes, he was ASKING about why racism exists and explicitly mentioned ignorance as a possible cause. So, again...if that post of yours was indeed directed to the TC instead of to me, that's pretty freaking strange. That's you calling him out for mentioning a wrong reason, and then you providing the correct reason, even though he/she specifically mentioned the exact same thing that you said. So...why jump on his/her ass with "it's about ignorance, not stereotypes" when he/she specifically and clearly mentioned ignorance as a cause in the opening post?

You can't justify CONTINUING to hold negative stereotypes after you have identified those stereotypes as being negative ones. However, one can EASILY justify negative stereotypes simply by failing to admit that they're negative stereotypes in the first place.

We are by nature an intelligent species that recognizes patterns and then sorts information into categories so that we can better retain and recall it. As in...people are generally sort of smart. Smart enough to retain a shit load of information and then put it to use, but stupid enough that we have to categorize it and lump things together or else it makes no sense to us. That kind of stereotyping and pattern recognition is inherent to nearly all human beings, but using it in a positive way requires an informed and educated understanding of current social/political/scientific/artistic constructs, as well as the historical basis for things. Or in other words, the reason that negative stereotypes exist is because EVERYONE has to hold stereotypes, but most people aren't sufficiently informed enough to distinguish the positive ones from the negative ones.

And that's exactly what I'm getting at.

Racist is one of those words that's thrown around like a hot potato these days.

Everything is racist now.

Yay.

Xenophobia has always existed, as a kind of primitive, tribal, social mechanism to protect one's own tribe from other tribes. In that sense, subtle forms of racism or bigotry have always existed.

But the more explicit forms of racism are relatively more recent, dating back to the last few centuries, with institutions like colonialism and slavery attempting to associate physical features and skin tones with innate racial superiority.