OK I'm not going to address your whole comment because I don't have the time or the energy, but this paragraph struck me as particularly silly: THAT IS RACISM. When white people view black people as "alien and strange," when white people do not help black people because they're "outsiders," they're being racist. That human tendency to protect the immediate social group? Yeah, that's the evolutionary root of racism. It seems like you're trying to say that white people don't hate black people. But that is not the only way in which racism manifests itself. The first step to apathy about someone else's situation is dehumanization-- to put it another way, viewing them as "alien and strange."The false barrier is responsible for the apathy of white America not because white Americans are racist against black Americans, but the division causes each side to view the other as alien and strange. One group is not as apt to help another group that they see as outsiders- this has less to do with race as it does a basic human instinct to protect their group first and foremost.