Here's a Darwinian angle on racial prejudice

“[Drs Cosmides and Tooby] argue that modern racial discrimination is an overstimulated response to what might be called an “alliance” detector in the human brain. In a world where the largest social unit [was] the tribe, clan or what-you-will of a few hundred people, your neighbours and your other allies will normally look a lot like you, and act similarly. However... neighbouring tribes [were] often hostile.

There would thus be a biological advantage in tribal branding, as it were. Potential allies would quickly identify what marked them out from others, and what marked others out from them—and, because those differences would probably be small, the detector would need to be very sensitive.

In the past, such markers would often have been cultural, since local physical differences would have been minimal.

A telling instance is recorded in the Bible:

'Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him.'

The questioners were the Gileadites. The slain, an Ephraimite. But no physical difference could distinguish the tribes, so the Gileadite ethnic-cleansers had to rely on linguistic tics.

In a world where a syllable can get you killed, having differently coloured skin is a pretty strong brand of identity.

However, it is not a unique signal. Experiments... conducted in both America and Brazil (another racially mixed country) suggest it is surprisingly easy to rebrand even people of different skin colour by making other badges of allegiance more significant—as happens when sportsmen clothe themselves in coloured team shirts.

Moreover, [Penner Irvine and Saperstein] have shown that perception of a person’s race can actually change in the real world. Many people shift from being “white” to “black”, in both their own eyes and the eyes of others, in response to unemployment, impoverishment or imprisonment.”

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795581

So while the cause may simply be a set of our evolved responses, the solution remains in our own hands.

Meredith “For a start why are you guys so under the impression that Mr Obama and his team of people are 100% perfect?”

Agree

I note Barrack has already started to sell down his previous promises and suggest the current circumstances will not allow for the entire political agenda to be fulfilled.

The expectations of some form of Obama lead evangelical revival are doomed to end in a crash, just like most US Democratic presidencies have been found coming up short.

Although, I wish him well in his presidency, he has a hell of a job on, the consequence of Jimmy Carters "Community Reinvestment Act".

Runner,
I think you are off the mark trying to justify the existence of coloured "difference" and racial intolerance anywhere.
Australian Aboriginal people enjoy tribal differences of language and ownership of their unique estates but generally they respect the protocols required for communication and passage .

Not so for us whitefellas. "Unique World Heritage Rock Art - let's bulldose it into a heap and build a gas plant! ".

After all , there is still plenty left !

No runner, being white is not necessarily right .

We are still evolving .

Hopefully Obama, or Barry to some, will evolve us one helleva a lot more .

kartiya jim you write

No where did I ever imply that 'white was right'. I did imply that often blacks are more racist than those they accuse of being racist. If they looked into their own prejudices they would be a lot better off. Mr Obama is very fortunate he is in the USA where dare I say many whites have given him an opportunity to be the first African American President.

If he lived in Nigeria he is likely to receive far more racism than he would of encountered in the USA.

I think you are speaking out of ignorance if you have not observed the squabbles and sometimes violence between tribes and family groups of our own indigeneous people. It is quite likely that many will put their hands up for royalties if the gas plant goes ahead. That will create more family squabbles.

Runner ,
Of course you're right and to save any possibility of unholy squabbles, we will bar the Blacks [of any shade ] from any royalties that may be legally available and make our white lives and theirs, a bit less stressfull .

you can hate yourself all you like Jim, but don't dump it on white people... sorry most of us don't hate ourselves... get some help man.