BG: I wonder. As I take it, the muslim had a middle-eastern look. Am I correct? If so, do you think you would've thought differently had it been a white guy reading that koran?

In any case, people are not born racists. Not at all. But people are born with a fear of what's unknown, so our brain will as quick as possible try to tell us what it is that we see. When we see a stranger, we will look at him, and depending on what we see (what colour his skin has, what kind of clothes he wears etc.) we will fit him or her into the most fitting "box" (that is for example, a "black people box", a "muslim box" etc.). But just knowing what some kind of people/thing/animal is called is worth just as much as knowing that that is a tiger, but not knowing that the tiger is dangerous. So these boxes are given certain values, and those values will be given to everyone who fits into these boxes. This is for example how you immediately upon entering know that a classroom is a classroom, not a church without having to study it any closer. But of course, sometimes it goes wrong, and we think that a group of people, or a box, has values that they really don't have, which is all the more evident when it comes to people. (I mean, how often do you go into what you think is a church, but then find out is a classroom? )

This is why interaction is so important in "fixing" this, and segregation can be so detrimenting. Only if we're given the "correct" values, we can replace the false ones and get a more correct view of them as a whole. Or even better, we won't get the false ones at all (which is more a "beutiful goal" rather than a reachable one). It's especially important at young ages, as that's when we first form these ideas. To edit them later on you may need some special admin-tools... or at least try much harder.

As an sidenote, this topic and talk about people being inherently racist reminded me of Jackie Arklöv. Why so, you ask? Because he's a half-black neo-nazi...