Racism in the United States has been a major issue in America since the colonial era. Historically, the country has been dominated by a settler society of religiously and ethnically diverse whites. Major racially structured institutions include slavery, settlement, Indian reservations, segregation, residential schools (for American Indians), and internment camps. Racial stratification has occurred in employment, housing, education and government. Racial discrimination was largely criminalized in the mid-20th century, and it became socially unacceptable or morally repugnant as well, but major inequalities still persist and racial politics remain a major phenomena.

The heaviest burdens of racism in the country have fallen upon Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans and some other immigrant groups and their descendants. Racist attitudes, or prejudice, are still held by moderate portions of the U.S population. Members of every American ethnic group have perceived racism in their dealings with other groups.

A common complaint about capitalism is that "all the capitalist sees is money". Given that this is true, observe that anyone who "only cares about money", doesn't care about the color of the person where their money comes from.

Capitalism is a system of individual rights -- it is a necessary political condition to the banishment of racism, where it results in the violation of individual rights. The only protection a man needs from racism is the protection of his rights -- specifically protection from the initiation of force, whether it be a knife held at ones throat by a Black Panther, or the noose held by a member of the KKK.

Observe the great American "melting pot" where the warring tribes of Europe who were busy killing each other in their homeland, were able to live relatively peacefully together. What principle was the cause of this? Politically, the principle of individual rights -- the foundation of capitalism.

This principle of individualism is gradually being eroded as the racists of today are advocating that people be rewarded political privileges, based on ones race, i.e., so called "affirmative action" -- the affirmation of racist policies. Under capitalism, such evil racist policies -- carried out by the power of government -- would be outlawed. Under capitalism, the only form of judgment is the method of individualism -- judging each man as an individual, i.e., by the content of ones character, and not the color of his skin (ancestry) as racists like Jesse Jackson clamor for.

Like a television set that needs adjusting, the picture of a black man and a white woman, a happy couple, just doesn't quite make sense for some people.

Laterriann Poole and Jerry Wood feel the sting of odd looks when they're walking hand-in-hand down the street.

There are the double-takes and the stares, the backward glances from people who just can't seem to understand what they're seeing.

"We try not to let it bother us," said Poole, 40, who has been dating Wood for three years.

Despite the stares, the number of mixed couples and public acceptance of them has grown dramatically in the last decade.

"Years ago, the climate wouldn't have accepted this," said Wood, 41, gesturing between Poole and himself. "We certainly wouldn't have been able to talk about it."

"It would have been sneaky," Poole said, shaking her head.

But is the surge of interracial married couples in the United States — up from just about 651,000 couples in 1980 to more than 1,348,000 in 1998 — a sign that racism is going the way of the Edsel?

Though white people are, by virtue of their skin color, often more oblivious to racism in its subtler forms today, most admit it still exists in many forms.

For black people, the question isn't whether racism exists. The real question 36 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. is, "Are there solutions?"

Sooner or later, the discussion turns back to the same thing.

Is there a solution to racism? I believe: there is. Knowledge is power and should be used to educate people about the harm racism does and the factors that contribute it. Cultural personality has to grow or be revived. The agents and forces of racism, wherever they come from, need to be exposed, and their untenable positions confronted and defeated."
Racism is a crime against humanity that needs to be confronted and defeated by all means necessary. However, fighting racism is not that easy and never will be easy. It has learnt to adapt and camouflage itself under different guises in continental Europe and North America making it more difficult to identify. (I provide below some examples to understand the subtleness of this ideology, which sometimes can be missed by many.)

Among those wishing to visit a western European country or Canada or U.S.A., the percentage of non-Whites who’re denied a visa has always been disproportionately higher compared to that of White applicants from similar economic backgrounds. And this gap widens when it comes to Muslim applicants from Asia and Africa who are selectively discriminated by western embassies.[1] Colored (non-White) people entering a Western country go through more stringent checking at the port of entry. The waiting time for citizenship of a colored person is unusually longer.[2] What is also important here is to realize that all these practices predate 9/11.