Time and time again, I find myself coming back to this discussion with other people. Personally I don't think racism exists anymore, others seem to disagree.
I'll use the following as an example. I saw a reddit comment by some kid being mad that a waitress was referring to him as Jackie Chan behind his back. He got all upset whining about her being racist.
Now, does calling him Jackie Chan, have anything to do with a hate of the kid's race? He looked like Jackie Chan, so she called him that as a joke. She treated him like she would have anyone else.
I don't think anyone these days, insulting another race has anything to do with hatred of that race. If it comes to insults, it's merely just insults because of the situation, no related to a hate of their race.
I'm not a writer, this is probably laid out terribly. What's everyone's thoughts on racism.
The fact that you and the waitress thinks he looks like Jackie Chan because he's Chinese can be considered racism. The implicit insult is that Asians all look the same, who's to say the kid was even Chinese? Maybe he was actually Korean or Mongolian or Taiwanese.
I think, barring this incident, there is DEFINITELY still racism out there with more explicit demonstrations. I know older men who still dislike black people as a result of their fathers' engrained hate for blacks, who were still alive during the slavery period of the USA. (I know there are more places in the world than the USA, but I'm speaking from experience, and I'm American, so deal with it!)
Secondly, in ROTC, we have to be briefed on racism and favoritism in regards to race, gender, and religion every time there's a related crisis in the Air Force ranks. We've been re-briefed three times since I started at the beginning of this school year, the first was mandatory for the new year, but the other two were ordered to be given by HOLMES Center (Our commander's boss' organization).
Lastly, religion often ties in tightly with race. E.G. Muslims and Middle Easterners; Buddhists and Asians; Catholics and Hispanics and white people similarly. The most basic form of racism you can witness from this fact is the mistrust felt by people with extremist views about Muslim terrorists. The view would be ">1% of muslims are terrorists, therefore all muslims could be terrorists". I've heard many outspoken comments by people, which all resemble "Just kill all the towelheads". This is obviously not so much a slander against Muslims, but Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis etc.
And then there's people who just hate one another. Shiites and Sunnis, Palestinians and Israelis, Chinese and Taiwanese, Chinese and Mongolians, Chinese and Japanese (there's a lot of hate concerning Chinese lawl), North and South Koreans (even though they're technically the same race...), Russians and Germans (althought, that's probably not as bad today as it was right after WWII), Americans and Mexicans, French and Americans (actually, a lot of Europeans hate Americans), Kosovans and Serbians, Canadians and French Canadians, Cubans and the entire world, the list goes on and on.
There is definitely still racism.
EDIT: Although..... looking at all of the examples I've given, I think there's MUCH LESS racism based on the belief that one race is
inferior or less human than another race. I think it's more of a
political and militant hate now. The Terrorists who attack America hates us not because we're inferior, but because we're infidels in their eyes, our government and way of life conflicts with their belief. Americans hate Mexicans because they will work for very cheap wages. Europeans hate Americans because they think we're all fat and lazy and we consume too much of everything. Palestinians hate Israelis for taking their believed homeland.
It's another way to look at racism, but it's definitely still racism
