By definition, they feel superior. Generally it's because they don't know any different.

Insecure and lack understanding of the other party.

Racism is a learned behavior. They grew up in an environment with other narrow-minded individuals.

For the most part, I agree with jtolb65 that racism is a learned behavior. However, I have known some people that in spite of being brought up with the idea that all people are equal, they are racist.

Trying to make sense of nonsense is futile. To understand why a someone would be racist, one must begin filling one's own mind with racist ideas. In fact, I had to think of racism to address your question. You're infecting us with racism! What sense does that make? You don't have to sniff poop to know that it stinks. You don't spend time analyzing where it came from or why it stinks. You see it for what it is and avoid it...unless, of course, you enjoy wallowing in poop. Leave racism to racists. Find a more constructive use for your brain power.

Well...let's take blacks for instance. A lot of whites hate "thugs" in the black race (because well, thugs are nasty, savage people. They are. You can't deny it). But, what these whites fail to see is that every race (and every country and every gender, by the way) has assholes in it. This is because people are people and some of us are fucked up and some of us aren't. These certain whites, however, ignorantly assume that because thugs exist, that must mean that all black people are horrible. And, that's where their logic goes to lunch. And, that's why they are ignorant. And, that's why they are asshole racists. That's just an example. There are racists in every race, of course.

It depends on the particular person. From what I can tell, racism is often based on experience taken out of context. Every ethnicity has it's jackasses, and sometimes it's those very same jackasses who are responsible for establishing negative stereotypes. When someone bases their view of an entire ethnicity on their experiences with a few of its people, they're definitely guilty of ignorance, but I don't see any particular pathology to it. I've met quite a few people whom I would venture to call racist, but of those people, very few have been especially bad or hateful people apart from that. The unfortunate fact is, racism isn't always the kind of thing that can be assigned a face and laid out in stark black and white (no pun intended) with clear "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys". Nor can it always be assigned a clear cause and effect.

The word is IGNORANCE. Whenever people are ignorant to another persons culture it brings intimidation with it. If we could all truly get along there would be another reason to disagree somewhere down the line.

Every being on this planet, whether fish, bird or mammal, has a preference for its own kind, and defends its territory against real or preceived threats. Therefore, in some ways, prejudice against someone or some people who seem different, is inbuilt. But humans are different than animals in that they can communicate. It is God-given. So they can talk to the other person and see if there really is a threat or whether it is just that old suspicion of difference that is putting up a barrier between them and someone else. Racism is a learned extension of protective behaviour. It stems from a basic insecurity that is played upon by the dominant people in a person's life.It is based upon fallacy, stereotype and illogically held beliefs, most of which are resistant to attempts to prove them wrong by the truth, because they are brainwashed into people over a long time. eg 1) Jews were seen as a threat to German life pre WW2. "Jews owned all the businesses and were all rich. Jews had an international conspiracy to keep the German people down." Reality saw that not all Jews owned businesses, and few held large ones. Most were normal workers in normal jobs. Only a small percentage were rich. There was no international conspiracy. However, had you said that to a Nazi, they would have never believed it, even had you shown them statistical proof. 2)All blacks were seen as moronic thugs by many southern Americans in the not so distant past. Despite the fact that there were educated AFrican-Americans from the mid-1800s (eg George Washington Carver) who contributed greatly to the wider US society. Even wonderful pperformers such as Sydney Poitier and Lena Horne fought against enormous prejudices, despite being neither moronic nor thuggish. Sometimes racism is self-fulfilling. If you say that a minority can only take certain jobs (eg the Jews and moneylending in the Middle Ages) are you surprised that certain Jewish families control large financial empires? Yes you are, and you exploit it by saying that "The Jews" in general control money. If you force blacks into certain areas and deny them basic education, are you surprised that they have a lower educational standard than the surrouding majority culture? Are you surprised that crime is big amongst the blacks? Yes you are, and you argue vigorously that this "proves" the fact that blacks are moronic thugs. Illogical, but that is the way humanity thinks, if its beliefs are not tempered by the teaching that all humans were created by a common Father and are both equally noble, and equally flawed.

Some people need to hate and/or feel superior. I truly think that bigots have something within themselves that feels less than. I have never had a bigot manage to LOGICALLY outargue me when I challenge them about their bigotry. It is all subjective. Then they usually just fall to ad hominum attacks. "You are just a filthy/f*cking/etc Gypsy" (and other such things) is not a rational response in a debate. When they start that I know that I have won. It is passed down in families, in cultures... not examined, rather accepted wholecloth. They do not have the intelligence to realize that, just maybe, the stereotypes are wrong. Or, they choose to shove their heads in the sand. Either way, I find bigots despicable.