I will provide historical examples in this post to support my claim that everyone is racist, racism, often exclusively used in relation to people with a white skin color is, as you will see, much older, existed in societies all over the world. I will take a few examples, both from older periods of history and more recent ones.
Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity.
The Romans and Germanic people
Let's start with the Roman empire. As we all know they were higher in development than other empires and people and a land desired to go to. Where as we now have refugees from the south, they came from the north in these times, Germanic tribes lived in poverty and Germanic children were abducted by Romans to serve as slaves.
When Germanic tribes asked the Romans to be allowed on their land, the Romans weren't particularly fond of it and they showed a disgust for these savages. In the end they were allowed to inhabit one of the most unfertile grounds of the empire somewhere in modern-day Romania.
The Germans became angry when the Romans passed a law in AD 370 prohibiting marriage between Romans and themselves. The Germans also felt they were not being treated as equals in the army.
Here we see an example of racism by Romans towards Germanic people, there are even more examples of Roman armies consisting of almost only Germanic people used in the battlefield in places where they would definitely be all slaughtered.
The caste system in India
The caste system is part of the Hindu religion and decides what people can do, based on the caste ewhich they belong to. I want to quote a text from The Times of India about racism and the caste system:
Source: blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/juggl ... on-racism/So far, India has managed to evade the caste-race equation by arguing that caste distinctions are based on social, occupational and economic considerations and not on genetic racial differences.
This view however might now be challenged by research done by the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), a Kalyani-based institution headed by biogeneticist Partho Mazumdar.
According to recent findings of the NIBMG, based on the analysis of DNA samples collected from Indians belonging to 20 population groups, including different caste groups and tribals, we are descended primarily from four ancestral origins: North Indian, South Indian, Austro-Asian and Tibeto-Burman. There is a fifth niche grouping of the Andaman and Nicobar islanders who are descendants of Pacific Ocean migrants.
Barring the Andaman and Nicobar tribals, the other four population groups mingled and intermarried till about the 6th century AD. Then, sometime during the Gupta period of about 1600 years ago, laws based on scriptural and social proscriptions created exclusivist divisions which prohibited intermarriage between these different genetic, or ethnic, groups.
Scientists of the NIBMG – whose conclusions have been corroborated and endorsed by Harvard Medical School’s David Reich – claim that the present-day caste distinctions trace their roots back to 70 generations of social differentiation based on genetic lines. Seen in this light, caste has a genetic – rather than just a social or occupational – basis, and as such is fundamentally racist in origin.
If this is so, no amount of social engineering through reservations and quotas in jobs and educational institutions is likely by itself to eliminate casteism and caste conflict, instances of which are daily reported. Indeed, treating caste discrimination as a purely social and economic evil only entrenches such prejudices and provokes inter-caste confrontation, often with tragic results.
Apartheid in South-Africa
When South Africa got colonized, this brought welfare to South Africa, but at the expense of natives. In hindsight, the taking of land of people which already lived here was not good and the emergence of the apartheid regime which had created a division between the native blacks and descendants of white colonists, created a lot of disruption and inequality in the society. Fortunately the apartheid regime was abolished later which gives natives the chance of higher positions in society.
Persecution of white people in South-Africa
As horrible as the treatment of native people was, it now goes the opposite direction. There is what we could call a black privilege in South Africa, where black people get a job earlier, have better chances in university etc. White people live in gettos and can get killed for being white. Even if ancestors of white people had a policy of surpression, the killing of people for being white and discrimination when going to university is still not a good thing and can be considered as a form of racism, and where as Mandela tried to reconcile the society and not create division between white and black people, South Africa is currently doing the same thing to descendants of the apartheid as they did to the ancestors of modern South Africans. There was actually willingness of white people to teach the natives how to run farms etc., but out of pure hate their offer was declined.
Ethiopian jews in Israel
If you are a jew from Ethiopia and thought you could live a good jewish life in Israel, think again, you might face racism because you are Ethiopian.
Policemen have beaten up Demas Fekadeh, supposedly because he was Ethiopian and didn't immediately move when the police asked him tk do so, but he was beaten to the ground with severe violence.
Israeli Ethiopians also regularly protest because of what they experience as institutional racism, the gouvernment of Israel doesn't show much empathy to Ethiopian jews.
Apart from Ethiopian jews there is also worse treatment of jewish groups which are regarded lower, like the Sephardim.
Racism against black people by Arabs
Racism against black people isn't limited to the western world. An example is the case of Alem Dechesa, a migrant worker from Ethiopia who suffered mental and physical abuse by the Lebanese employers and committed suicide.
aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/2 ... 07286.html
What we can conclude here is that racism is of all time and not exclusive to one society.
We also all have subconscious prejudices, which makes us all racists deep down, this however was necessary to survive, if we don't distinguish others, we can't point out danger. What is important is what we do with our prejudices, we shouldn't judge an individual by concepts of a whole group.