@ishotthesheriff: Yours is a popular interpretation, you’ll get lots of support, but I disagree with it. The problem is not that some folks are just bad, or have wrong ideas, they discriminate, and then we end up with more poor black folks than poor white folks. That’s a gross oversimplification. The roots are historic, and not, in my view, part of human nature. There are many places and times in human history where “the races” coexisted harmoniously. We are not pre-disposed to be prejudiced based on skin color.
The alternative perspective sees racism as historically specific. In the US/Western Euro. case, economic and political decisions made by a relatively small number of economic elites led to a slave trade, and then a rationalizing rhetoric about race, in order to justify the economic order. The current state of things in the US is directly tied to this historical situation. It is perpetuated by culture and the dynamics of racism itself.
The view that bigotry, ignorance and prejudice are the heart of the matter is a convenient buttress for white supremacy in the US. It always serves white supremacy more to obfuscate power.