I watched a DVD last night by PJ Harvey. A Dog Called Money.
The quote that she said as she was filming in Washinton USA…“when white people plant a tree, they imagine black people hanging from it”.
She was being ironic… But also pointing out the endemic racism in America. We have lots of it here too, but in the twenty-first century, how can racism still exist???
For me I find racism very odd. It’s so much like once you see something you can’t unsee it. People who have black skin can’t help it, so why would you want to be angry with them for having different color skin?
Here in Australia, I judge people on their behavior, not their skin color….so I see behavior not skin color.
I enjoyed the DVD. She is an amazing artist and singer.
Noir 
Racism or racist sentiment is typically environmentally developed/acquired during childhood, often enough even passed down generationally, if not also genetically. Especially if it’s deliberate, rearing one’s very impressionable young children in such an environment of baseless contempt and overt bigotry amounts to a formidable form of child abuse.
If racists won’t do it for plain moral reasons, they then should do their own children a big favor by NOT passing down onto them such destructive anti-social/-societal sentiments and perceptions (including stereotypes and ‘humor’), since such rearing can readily make life much harder for those children.
It fails to prepare them for the practical reality of an increasingly diverse and populous society and workplace. It also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or preferably harmonious with their multicultural and multi-ethnic/-racial surroundings.
Children reared into their adolescence and, by extension, young adulthood this way can find themselves seemingly always feeling angry yet not really knowing exactly at what. They also may feel self-compelled to move to another part of the land, where their own ethnicity/race predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so.
This serious social/societal problem can/should be proactively prevented by allowing young children to become accustomed to other races/cultures/faiths, etcetera, in a harmoniously positive manner.
… I consider myself lucky in having had a mother who, unlike many other people I’ve met over my lifetime, did not even subtly express prejudiced or disdainful sentiments about people of other races and cultures. On the contrary, she, though being of Croatian heritage, openly enjoyed watching/listening to the Middle Eastern and Indian subcontinental dancers and musicians on the multicultural channel.
Most memorable for me was being emphatically told at a very young and therefore impressionable age by her about the exceptionally kind and caring nature of our Black family doctor. I believe that in doing so she had a positive and lasting effect on me.