Statistics?

History?

Bromhydrosis?

Plain dislike, perhaps out of facial features and the belief that they are animalistic in nature?

However, I believe that most people do not have a reason.

I also think it must be out of fear. Why do some people lock there doors while driving through the hood? Because they are scared of the people that live there. Not all people that live in the hood are bad people, some may be single parents trying to make it on there own for all we know.

Statistically speaking, black people have a higher crime rate then white people do. Because of this people might see a black person as threat and act out with hate.

Though the main reason is probably nothing more then ignorance on their part.

I'm pretty sure there's different levels of racism.

I judge people by their skin colour - pretty accurately I'd say. To me race is important. Everybody secretly judges people by groups - I'm just not one to deny it.

I don't however take it to a level of brainwashing people. You learn about groups through experiences. Word of mouth tends to be less accurate...

I disagree that people are judged 'on skin color alone'. I find that people of different cultures have been raised differently, and therefore have different attitudes, cultures, values and beliefs. Not that that's a bad thing. I think some people find people of different races odd because of these differences, and some are just scared of people who aren't perfect. Reminds me of the book 'The Chrysalids'

That kid probably doesn't know what he's doing and the parents probably taught him to do that for kicks. The kid will probably end up marrying a nice Jewish girl ;)

ONE WORD

------------------>>>>>>> FEAR<<<<<<<<<<;<-----------------

People are racist because of our evolutionary roots: we were tribalistic creatures, competing with other tribes of our species. I imagine this was concurrent with the rise of intelligence, and if so, then you can see why "racist" emotions would evolve. A rational, thinking being would have a hard time hating other members of the species just because they were from a different tribe, but it was evolutionarily advantageous to hate them (If you didn't hate them, you wouldn't fight them, and they'd kill you). So we evolved irrational, arbitrary emotions that pit us against any one who is different in order to help us survive when competing with them.

Human society has changed since then, but unfortunately human biology hasn't. So we're left with these brutal vestiges of our tribal days, and those of us who are too ignorant to rise above instinct are cruel, racist people.

Admittedly, there are other factors that contribute to racism, notably fear, upbringing, social circumstances, etc; but none of these factors could exist without the initial instinct.

It's also worth noting that this instinct has many other manifestations. Sporting competitions, nationalism, "cliques' in high school, and countless other human behaviours are all examples of it. Racism is probably the most serious and most detestable of all of these, however.

Because- as you said- they are taught that they are better then another group of people because they have a different skin color. It's 'sick'.

There really is no REAL reason, they hate people just to hate them.

Though it is extremely incorrect it isn't going to disappear, as the day everyone is in total empathy is the day after Judgement Day.

There's a lot of reasons why people are racist or bigots in general. But for me, I think the major reason people are racist because they want to feel superior to another and picking out someone that looks very different from the rest of their group..