Great post. I think that most people are racist...to some level. Maybe they don't harbor negative judgements about the "outside" group, or maybe they don't make decsions based on their feelings, but they will notice the "difference" easily.

I think it's baked into us as humans a part of the us-versus-them heuristic, and I would actually refer to it as tribalism instead of racism for the most part. Race, language, and religion are going to be key markers for tribal inclusion.

Here are three things that I hope contribute to your discussion:

• While staioned in Japan, I found that the Japanese were the most racist people I had encountered, but they were also very polite about it. Your point about open racism being honest plays very well re this point. I got to the point to where I would hear " Japanese only please", I would just bow and smile back, and walk away w/o a single feeling of insult.

• The FBI ran a COINTELPRO against the KKK in the mid-60s which every official in the FBI felt was a success. A similar COINTELPRO against the New Left failed for the most part. Why was this so? Although one factor was that Hoover terminated COINTELPRO across the board after the KKK (WHITE HATE) op, but during the NEW LEFT op, I would argue it was the tactics the FBI used aginst the Klan that was the difference. While the most extremist Klansmen were targeted for marginalization, they were not marginilized on "racism" grounds, but rather "personal sins" In contrast, the bulk of Klansmen were "seduced"way from the Klan by appealing to patriotism and noting the contributions black soldiers made to the army, and by noting the the possible danger of "forcing" the blacks into the arms of the communists.

• I found this to be hilarious. I was at a football game in the mid-90s. One one side of me sat a large group of black folks, mostly middle aged. One the other side of me was a large group of white folk about the same age. In front of the black folks was a group of rowdy young white teens. In front of the whites was a rowdy group of young black teens. I heard the exact same comments from both groups of the older folks throughout the game: those damn white/black kids are showing their ass. Neither group complained about the antics of the same-race teens. Both sets of teens were indeed being shitbirds. This should highlight the point I made about group inclusion via race markers. FWIW, I didn't really hear a lot of full "racist" languag, like the word "nigger" or "honky", mostly just white/black.