Few places on Earth have ever been able to overcome the profits of competitive human indecency.

I think the underlying core is competition itself, taught from childhood. The division of people by convenient targeting methods (skin tone, gender, clothes, language, shoe brand) has always been the domain of the powered over the unempowered. “In a society based on competition, you inevitably end up with ever fewer winners and increasingly more losers.”-Wendell Berry

American competition is fanatical, and it seems like every bullying method is a separate problem (racism, poverty, wars, misogyny, religious hate, political branding, credentialism), but underlying it all is the cultured blind belief that competition proves someone is ‘better’ than the next person, rather than just meaner or bigger.

Humans don’t instinctively grasp the difference between bullying and leadership, so it must be taught and fought for in all of civilization that has always been based on the powerful exploiting the weak: all the way up to the ultimate Aristocrat: God.

To fight racism, we have to fight every version of authority that inflicts competition as unquestioned and authority as automatically sanctioned. But that’s the easy 'stick' target. The most difficult 'carrot' is changing generational conditioning to teach cooperation and service to place and persons without becoming victims of exploitation by charismatic cheaters and power mongers.