The Japanese and other Asian societies can be incredibly racist. Mixed race babies have a rough time in their society. I haven't checked into it in years, but girls who bore babies of American servicemen often placed the babies in orphanages. If they kept them they were often shunned. And the babies/children were discriminated against for not being pure. It was far worse for the babies of black fathers.

Racism is prejudice and differential treatment based on race, pure and simple. It's possible for someone of any race to be racist towards another. It's even possible to be racist towards your own race.

The confusion lies with political correctness. This makes concessions that allow the disadvantaged minority to be critical of their oppressors, but not the other way around. It's okay for a black comedian to tell white jokes, but not the reverse.

It's something I call 'minority privilege', and it proliferates massively in LGBT circles. However, rather than just sticking it to the non-LGBT masses, you'll find gay guys who are prejudiced against lesbians, lesbians who are prejudiced against trans women, and a whole bunch of people having a pop at bisexuals for refusing to pick a team. It takes an interesting twist when it's minorities gunning for other minorities. Whose side should political correctness take?

I think a better word may be bigoted or prejudiced in which case, absolutely they can be.

Two of my grandchildren have a black father and one has an Chinese mother. My asian grandson is only in kindergarten so hasn't been out and about enough to notice issues.

Since I look younger, the black children are assumed to be my children and I have experienced bigotry from some black people but frankly, I receive more from white people.No doubt my daughter has had the same experience.

But in all honesty, I tend to assume all rednecks are prejudiced despite being raised in that culture.

Perhaps because of it because I used to be somewhat prejudiced and have said some fucked up shit when I was young

I thought only the ruling class could be racist and minorities have prejudices...
Thats why their is no such thing as reverse racism.

Anyone can be a racist. I've seen it from people I'd never expect.
It's always disappointing, no matter who's doing it.

The worst discrimination-the only one- I experienced in USA comes from the Latinos; they can't take the fact I speak Spanish because I am blonde and I have blue eyes. No one day goes by w/o one of them telling me "You look like a "gringa."

Ignorance, my friend, moves both ways.

I am reminded of a speech my African ex told me of by Robert Mugabe to the tobacco growers of Zimbabwe. " You have had a great harvest this year but I want you to grow more. Not only will this bring in more revenue for our country but it will kill more white fuckers ".

Of course they can. I go by objective definition of words, Not subjective emotional opinions.

What a fascinating and timely discussion!! I will go back and re-read this from time to time.

For what it is worth, I take a broad view of what racism is. I'd put it something like this: Racism is the universal human practice of categorizing one another by physical or cultural attributes and arranging those categories into a hierarchy with the ones doing the categorizing at the top. At this very basic level racism is a survival strategy. For example, if you are a member of a hunter gather band and you meet people different from you, distrusting them is probably the safest option. If some of those strangers are hostile to you, it is a safe strategy to put those people into a category called "bad people". There is pretty good evidence that evolution has selected in favor of this defensive strategy in creatures that showed up long before humans.

As human culture has developed different cultures have elaborated racism in different ways. Western European culture has elaborated racism far beyond anything any culture I know about. European racism seems to have begun as a tool of empire building. For would be colonial oppressors it was handy to add a religious and patriotic feature to racist ideology. The development of the pseudo-science of scientific racism may be the most powerful, long lasting accomplishment of European civilization. That is the kind of racism that has come to dominate all our thinking over the past 500 years or so. It is hard to think of any atrocity committed anywhere since 1500 that is not rooted in this particular European invention.

I don't think humans are ever very likely to get rid of racism all the way. I do like to hope that we can come to a different kind of racism that views cultural and racial differences through an aesthetic lens that permits us to appreciate our differences as a kind of art.

Australia has about 800 First Nations Tribes or Clans. They have inhabited this continent for upto 50,000 years successfully surviving in a harsh dangerous environment. Even within individual tribes let alone between tribes there is a form of racism/ discrimination:
Australian Aboriginal avoidance practices - Wikipedia [en.m.wikipedia.org]

How racism became a structure rather than a motivation is beyond me.

My experience has been with Tlingit natives in Alaska, some just don't like white people catching their halibut and salmon.

Absolutely. Racism knows no colour boundaries . Blacks # not all. can be extremely racist . Ask Tommy Sotormayor or Maxine Waters.

I think your definition of racism is racist. It isn't all about black and white and it isn't US centric.

Sure black people can be racist. Anyone can be. Even within races. My BFF is from Korea. There is a lot of discrimination between different Asian groups. I work with a lot of people from India. There is a huge amount of racism between different Indian groups. It is all about perspective.

Racism:

1. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
   "a program to combat racism"
   synonyms: racial discrimination, racialism, racial prejudice, xenophobia, chauvinism, bigotry, casteism
   "Aborigines are the main victims of racism in Australia"

2. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
   noun: racism
   "theories of racism"

look up the word race and you will see it has got nothing to do with colour. in fact, to a degree, it's natural self-preservation. everyone lies and everyone judges too for the same reason. I watched an experiment with a little girl. first, the people doing the human experiment dressed her as if she was from a fairly good family with money, really neat and just so and got her to act scared and lost. people just rushed to help. then they dressed the very same girl as a right scruff and no one gave a fuck.

There is no tribe on earth that is innocent of racism. There is no such thing as "race" but there is such a thing as racism and I believe it is inherent in all groups. Often being abused only exacerbates the problem.

I worked with an African who hated this Jamaican.The Jamaican said he hated Africans.
They have just discovered the earliest skeleton in England.Check it out on the net.He's called cheddar man.Thats where he was discovered.They DNA him and they discovered he would have been a black man with blue eyes.They say the white man is the one that evolved to cope with the climate.

Racism is defined as the belief that one race is inherently superior to another by virtue of birth. So this is a STUPID poll. Oh. Sorry.

I believe anyone can be racist. I don't deny what is described above is true, but that is not the only definition of racism. In my opinion, ANY time race is a factor in anything, that's racism. NAACP, racist. Affirmative Action, racist. Same with individuals, social groups (notably, ethnic groups in schools). Whether the purpose is positive or negative, it's all racism to me. I wish we were all colorblind, ethnically speaking anyway. =]

One may even be racist against oneself.
I have to wonder just when skin color became the most defining characteristic of race. At its inception it was not so narrow.

any human can be ...

Yes, black people can be racists.

Living in southeast Florida, we have many shades of skin tone. I have noticed that some black people from the Caribbean tend to be very bigoted towards Afro-Americans and even among themselves there are bigotries. The Jamaicans I've met seem have a superiority complex in regards to other non-Jamaican blacks.

Go to India with amongst other things its caste system. Then you can experience racism.