My opinion is that being a racist is a learned behavior. I remember growing up and my family being a bit racist. In general they are very judgmental people and if you do not do everything exactly as they do, you are looked down upon. I am happy to say I always was the "black sheep" which to me is not a bad thing. My husband and I are pretty much on our own in life and have broke cycles from both of our families. We do not look down on people who are not like us and do not judge people by their skin color or sexual preferences. We do not judge people by the amount of money they make or the brand of clothing they wear. Our kids are not racist by any means and can not believe just a few years back things were much different. When you hear someone being racial, you have to assume they learned it from somewhere. If it was not the way they were raised then it was from friends. I believe the people, like myself who grew up in a family that was a bit racist, that do not become racist at some point hear what their family is saying, and understand it is wrong. They may understand it is wrong just from looking at peoples expressions when racial remarks are made. Or maybe someone in their family said a racial remark and got an earful back, at some point. This is just my personal opinion.http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2683/4192817408_b2daf4a489_t.jpg

I think it is a bit of both. It's learned behavior in the respect that one does not inherently go and say "Asians][ are smart", because well, one cant just know this from birth. This idea has been formulated by our society and we have learned it, and possibly adopted it. That being the case, its human nature to feel good about oneself and to be the best one can be. When we say, oh yeah, well I just lost because my opponent was black, we do this out of a need to feel good about ourselves. Naturally, we say things that either put the blame away from us as an individual, or glorifies us. In a nutshell, humans are bound to be racist because of a natural need/want to as good as they can be, but the specific stereotypes are in many ways inherited from our parents ideas, aka, learned