One thing I've found in regards to racism is that it is depressingly common to every group of people I've met. I've heard racist stuff from muslims about black people, from asians about white people, from white people to not white people, a small segment of every group seems to hate another group for being different and only time and exposure to other races and cultures is going to diminish the problem until hopefully it is so diminished it vanishes.

My best friend Ken is half-chinese and that's brought a differing perspective to my eyes over the years. The best example I can think of is he once asked me why white people seemed to avoid asians, not that he saw much mistreatment, more that he saw a lack of contact and he couldn't figure it out. I told him that many of the white people I knew felt like the asians they had met were standoffish, aloof and arrogant, as if they were too good to join the larger group and wanted to remain apart. Ken was astonished by that because the asians he knew wanted to join in the larger group but since they were not invited in, they felt they weren't welcome and in those cultures it would be considered very bad manners to push themselves forward. That isn't the only point of difference and I'm sure there are more egregious examples but I thought it was interesting that one of the problems could be attributed purely to cultural differences.

My ex-girlfriend was black and everybody warned me that we'd be treated badly, what with me being a little on the pale side and white guys dating black girls apparently considered controversial by some. But I can say this honestly; not once in the year we were dating did one person make one comment that could be construed in a racist fashion. Every restaurant treated us well, every movie theater, every dance club. Not one time was it a problem.

One of the best lines I'd ever heard on the subject of racism came from a university educated friend of mine, he believed that racism was stamped out by education and white collar workers were much less racist on average than blue collar workers. I just asked him if he'd ever really worked a blue collar job and after the 'I worked summers to help pay for university so don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about' nonsense was finally dispensed with I continued by pointing out that blue collar jobs are much more integrated than most white collar jobs. Every factory I've worked in the people of color are either equal to or more than the white workers. There may be racist jokes but they fly from all corners and everybody pretty much gets along and works together. I think in his office there were one or two people of color, something like that. So, in effect, he was bragging about 'tolerating' one or two people while I had worked with dozens and didn't give a damn about tolerance: They were people, some were good workers, some weren't and that was the only thing that mattered.

I'm not saying education can't help, it can, but I feel the biggest key by far is exposure. The more you see, the more you meet, the more you talk to, the better you'll understand.