Racism has a variety of characteristics that make it inherently a terrible ism. Racism is caused by the domination and power of one group of people over another. One of the most common examples of racism would be white privilege in comparison with the daily hardships and struggles that people of color encounter. White privilege is a privilege that is awarded to whites based on the color of their skin. White privilege is an innate characteristic that allows one that is white accessibility to all facets of life and to never allow oneself to encounter situations where one's skin color would deny access or disadvantage.
             As a white male in society, I never can say that I have encountered any form of racism because of being part of the normal dominate class, racism never affected my life. In America, the norm is "male, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, Christian, and has access to wealth and resources" (Pharr, p. 7). For most of these descriptions, I am the norm. The problem is that I do not attempt to execute my unfortunate inherent "power" of domination over anyone. For one to assert power and domination over a class of people than racism will occur. There is no such thing as a race of people, because "race is an arbitrary and meaningless concept" (Rivers, p. 2). Race does not exist among human beings because "if there ever was any such thing as race, there has been so much constant crisscrossing of genes for the last 500,000 years that it would have lost all meaning anyway" (Rivers, p.2).
             Racial prejudices will always exist in our culture. The problem with racism is that no one understands why any group of individuals feels it necessary to apply domination over another culture. With the introduction of racism into the world, violence has perpetuated and increased among those who are trying to oppress and the target group that is being oppressed. Unfortunately, the threat of violence is always intertwined with racism. Violence ha...