Racism, Gypsies, immigrants, problems & solutions

[Zenith]

Racism is a societal and cultural problem.

The first step to solve it, though I doubt we'll ever be truly rid of it, is education and to stop people thinking in stereotypes.

I personally TRY to judge people as individuals, not by their religious/cultural/national identities. I don't always succeed, unfortunately.

I think racism is some extreme form of defensive mechanism. Someone sees a man who turns out to be a thief, he tries to be cautious. He sees another man who is a thief, from the same religion / culture / nationality, the same. If he happens to see and / hear about 10 people belonging to the same new (new to him) religion or culture or nationality, he starts to associate. Of course, there are exceptions, or perhaps say 40% of them turn out to be well behaving. But I think there's an inherent feeling of danger associated, so this "prejudice" gets out of the way once you get to know the individual (and the individual turns out to be ok).

The culture, unfortunately, does have an impact upon the people (I'm talking about groups, not specific individuals). It is the very environment that adds to their education. It might make the difference between, say, ~80% of the individuals that can be considered to be trustworthy and 4%.

And I believe racism cannot be fixed only by trying to educate the people into accepting a minority, but also into helping the minority - the one who's having an inferior culture - to rise to a higher level.