Why does racism occur?

Before trying to combat racism, I think it is first important to understand it. It can be explained in terms of evolution and human behaviour.

In ancient times, when humans (or equivalent) were a relatively new species, they found that the chances of survival were much better if, instead of living as individuals and fending for themselves, they lived in a group. A group of people is far stronger than an individual, because a group of humans can hunt and kill animals larger than themselves, by the coordinated efforts of everyone in the pack.

However, a problem arose from time to time, when two of these groups came into conflict, usually competing over a resource such as a piece of land. The most determined groups usually won and therefore survived. So over the period of thousands of years, humans had this built in sense of being in a group, and seeing all other groups as a threat.

Today, the same kind of rationale is not logical, because we have found ways to share resources (using money) to everyone, and the system of money has meant that now people can work together even if they don't know each other. Although this pack idea is now effectively obsolete, there are still many traces of it left in the human brain.

So we have this instinct to identify ourselves with certain social groups, this happens all the time, football supporters are a good example. The problem is that once people are in a group, there is a tendency to dislike people in other groups. When people identify themselves as being a particular race, they can tend to think of other races as enemy groups, in the same way the tribal system used to work in ancient times.

Racism is caused by this unpleasant aspect of human nature and is caused simply because sometimes people think that someone with pigmentation (or not) in their skin should be thought of as an enemy, a threat.