Re: Racism..does it only apply to black people?

Perhaps because whites are the majority & for some reason have always felt superior? In that way insults wouldn't bother them as much as say a black person, who's been kept down historically & ridiculed, so they are more sensitive to being made fun of. Just my opinion, hope I haven't offended anyone.

Re: Racism..does it only apply to black people?

I was a youth worker for 40 odd years and on one occasion was asked to work with a group of black youngsters with a view to them starting a "black youth group" (very trendy back in the 80's when separatism was the in thing - with Girls Groups, Womens Groups, etc etc springing up all over the place and competing for council grants). I wasn't supposed to run the group, just act as advisor to the two black workers who were employed to run it.
Within a couple of sessions it became clear that there was a real issue between the workers and the young people. I was asked to mediate and the main issue was simply that the two workers were African and the young people were British born from African-Caribean backgounds. As far as the kids were concerned they could not relate to these two guys at all. As discussion developed, it became clear that there was a clear element of discrimination (whether you call it racism or xenophobia is irrelevant to my mind) from the kids to the African adults. The youngsters clearly regarded Africans as inferior to themselves - as one young man put it, "They still live in the jungle and eat bananas" - which seems a strange racial stereotype for a black person to hold. On further discussion it also became clear that the young people held a variety of "racial" prejudices along these lines, with shade of skin and island of origin (in the West Indies) being areas for discrimination. So, returning to the original post, I would say that anyone of any race or ethnicity can be "racist."

Re: Racism..does it only apply to black people?

Yes Mick - I suppose its not a lot different to how we are, the way we react to Brummies, Welsh, Irish etc ..... People are the way they are for whatever reason .....

Re: Racism..does it only apply to black people?

Here in the States, we are equal opportunity discriminators. Nearly every nationality has had it's turn. There was a time Italians were discriminated against... Then the Irish. Businesses posted signs in their windows.. "Irish need not apply".. THEN we hated the Chinese. They were walled into Chinatown in San Francisco... We have a long standing history of racism toward Blacks.. But our latest object of hate seems to the Central American children.. I'm thoroughly disgusted by that one.

Re: Racism..does it only apply to black people?

Here in Britain..there were notices in boarding house windows in the 1960's..

''No Irish..no Blacks..no dogs''