But the way we often live, by habit we see a world thoroughly conditioned by duality. Driven by doubt and fear, by a lack of trust in our true Mind, we see things as self and objects, as us and them, as other. The root of racism is denial of this truth. It is about seeing people as other in a systematic way that is such an entrenched habit we are not usually aware of. I would underscore the word systematic, because as ideas like a virus in society they have a power that goes beyond individual like and dislike.
Racism is a system of domination that is economic and political as well as personal.
It runs deep in the oppressor and the oppressed alike, though the damage caused is different. Even though I have the privilege of a good education, middle class male upbringing, white skin, I find in myself deeply ingrained and systematic survival responses as someone born Jewish. We knew who each other was, and we were more comfortable for it. This, I am sure, is a pattern that goes back through centuries of being ghetto-ized, of being the other. It's not a genetic thing.