Racism is an ugly thing, that has a presence in almost every society, in some way, shape, or form.

But that does not mean that it can be attributed to only white people.

Recently, there was an attack on a mentally disabled, white man. It was live streamed over Facebook, and like anything that the media ever gets a hold of, it became controversial very quickly. Not necessarily because people denied that it actually happened, but because some people didn't want to believe that someone of a non-white race could be responsible for a hate crime, or more specifically, expressing racism towards a white person.

The belief that racism is and should be associated with only white people is not necessarily an outdated belief, but it is not completely accurate. This country in particular struggles with the idea of racism more than most because most of this country's history has more than enough racism in it. When looking back at times like the founding of this country, when Europeans brutalized the natives of North and South America, racism as a practice founded by whites against people of different colors, looks to be a well-founded belief. Looking at the introduction of the Trail of Tears, Slavery, and the Civil War, it looks even worse for the white population. Moving into the 20th century, before and during the Civil Rights Movement, racism ran rampant in what is considered a "modern" period in history, and it was after all of these things that took place in our country when racism became a heated topic of discussion.

Clearly, history has its fair share of examples depicting the white race as the origin of racism, but that does not mean that the white race is always the perpetrator of racism, or it's morally sound to be racist towards whites simply because of past incidences of racism, perpetrated by white people.

Throughout history, there have plenty of times where racism has come about, sometimes brought on by white people, but sometimes not. Instances like the Bosnian Genocide, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, the Soviet Union era, the Holocaust, and racism in the Middle East. There have been racist instances between China and Japan, in India, and in South America. It is not a "United States" or "white people" problem. It is global problem, that has been around for centuries, in different countries, against different groups, for different reasons, and unfortunately, a problem that will likely be here to stay.

As a history major, and someone who is very interested in culture, and the study of global issues, I have formed an opinion of my own on racism. I believe that it stems from much, much more than just the hatred of another race. Racism is a general term/description, in my opinion, of putting a certain group of people on a pedestal. I believe that racism encompasses so much more than just believing that your group is better than someone else's just because their skin is darker, or lighter than yours; the idea of racism and the belief in it surrounds so many other things, from religious intolerance, to ethnic intolerance, and class structure, and history. It depends on the place and the people in it, the economy and society that people live in, and often comes along with national distress or nationalism. So because there is no one reason that racism comes about, and the racism of a certain group or country may not come as an explicit expression of racism, such as the Holocaust or Slavery, it is an extremely murky topic of conversation, and cannot just be attributed to one group or people, and coming from a white person, this may sound very biased, but by looking at history, it can be inferred that racism is not always perpetrated by the Caucasian race.

It's a global problem, one that makes its presence known almost everywhere, whether the population is white or not.