I prefer to think that Im not an automaton thinking what Im told. I grant that certainly in history the divide and conquer method has been used by the ruling power too many times (for instances its easier to kill an enemy if you call him a "red" or "hun" or whatever rather than a human being, certainly Hitler singled out the Jews but there is also intolerance borne of ignorance. I dont really think the people mentioned as the subject of this thread developed their racist tendencies as a result of some insidious govt plan I think they learned it themselves probably having grown up in a relatively homogeneous culture that experienced large inmigration of ethnic groups in the past 30-40yrs. Certainly the Japanese would never consider themselves racist and yet 3rd generation Japanese born Koreans have to carry alien cards, are not allowed to take on Japanese names. etc. because they are also a homogeneous culture.

The point is that rather than seeking some outside blame we should be aware of what we assume and do ourselves. Its just like the problems with the environment, its not just the large corporations doing the polluting its also us as individuals. eg. since the fall of communism in Mongolia more and more unemployed became shepherders and because they are trying to make more money by selling cashmere wool and cutting back on costs (ie not moving around pastures as they did traditionally) they are putting a strain on the grasslands and inadvertently creating a dessert. This is not to say it would be great to return to communism as they were the worst polluters in the world.

the problem is more complex than that, this is what I mean by naivete. sure Ive read the history books but who are they written by, How many books are there on the Hussite revolution and yet it is considered by some historians as one of the first revolutions of the people. In the 15th century people fought for truth, equality imagine that it didnt matter to them how high one was born.