IS WHITE PARENTS RAISING RACIST CHILDREN THE SAME AS BLACK PARENTS RAISING ... CHILDREN?

(In the blank space you can insert the name of any minority group)

I almost choked on the water I was drinking when my daughter asked this question out of the blue during a routine post-dinner chitchat. Apparently this had been a discussion topic in her school earlier that day. I will try to summarise my reply here but please remember it is reply to my 15-year old, not a treatise on right and wrong.

I told her that in my opinion, people hate other groups of people for 3 main reasons. The first, and the stupidest, reason for hating another person is over factors that neither party had any control over. For example, if a white person feels superior to and hates a black person, do they ever reflect on the fact that neither of them had any control or choice over whether they were born white or black, and that it was just an accident of birth? The black person had no choice in being born black, just like the white person had no choice in being born white. How stupid a person has to be, to feel proud of something which they had no role in achieving?

The second main reason people hate other groups of people is for having a different belief system. My daughter asked me why did God not create all human beings with the correct beliefs, and then we would have none of this conflict? I said that life is like an exam. We are all supposed to find the right path through our own efforts, and if there is a life after death as we believe, then those do manage to find the right path will pass the exam. Having said that, just as we believe that our belief system is the correct one, other people also believe the same. And it will only be after death we will truly and finally find out who was right, and who wasn't. And that is why we should respect everyone else's beliefs, while holding on to our own, and never hate people for having different beliefs from our own.

The third main reason people hate other groups is for some specific behaviour that our belief system may not approve of. I explained to her that no human being is perfect. I do a lot of things which I clearly know are wrong, and yet I still commit those acts. I try to stop myself from committing those actions, but being human I still slip. What right then do I have to consider myself more pious or holier than others, and hate them for what they do? 

In the end we had a discussion about how difference is to be tolerated, and in some case celebrated, and should never become a reason for hating another human being just because they look different, or speak, believe, or behave differently. This bought her a lot of peace of mind to my daughter so I thought it may be worth sharing with others.