[RamsFanSam]

CH, you seem to have a good attitude toward this. Maybe I didn't explain myself too well, so let me try again.

Throughout history, most peoples were segregated by geography. This is still true for the most part. For example, you will rarely see a Huli family (New Guinea) living in Lybia. As time progressed, transportation improved, enabling people to migrate to other areas. However, most people remained in the immediate geographical area of their birth. When migration took place, it was most commonly due to famine, war, or economic reasons, just as it is today.
As transportation improved, Empires sought to expand their territories. Military conquests resulted in the forced mixing of cultures, such as happened in Europe over the past 2000 years. Former kingdoms were conquered, and the new empire changed boundries that people lived with for centuries. Sometimes, it worked, sometimes not. Had the Roman Empire not expanded into Germany, France, and Britain, the Angles, Gauls, Franks, Celts, and Saxons might still be fighting wars over territory today.
Most conquests resulted in people being captured for slavery. These people were often removed from their homeland, and taken to serve the wealthy citizens of the conquering empire. This resulted in ethnic groups being spread across much of the known world.
In America, things happened differently. Exploration for economic advantage was the reason Columbus even found the new world. (Once again, greed is a motivating factor...) Governmental and religious oppression soon led to the influx of various people coming to this country. Early settlers, for the most part, did not oppress the 'savages' already here. In fact, trading with the native people was a way to insure survival. The European governments did not really do much for or against the settlers until they realized the potential for economic gain. That is when they began claiming huge chunks of land 'in the name on the king'. Soon, colonies were formed, with limited authority. Most production and a majority of resources were shipped back to Europe. Taxes were imposed on goods like tea, foodstuffs, etc. Early Americans were seen as a 'captive market' for these goods, and a source of income for the crown. As we all know, the colonists soon got fed up with the way they perceived they were being treated, so revolt took place. European countries, seeking to settle old grudges, soon sided with either the colonists, or with the ruling country. The colonists got lucky...they won. By then, the population was growing, they needed more room, they didn't need the help of the natives, so the Indians were slaughtered or forced to move. Some were taken as slaves.
This brings me to the next area...the kidnapping of African people to be used for slaves. This was not due to military victory, or even survival. This was all due to greed. Slave ships could be sent to Africa, hundreds of people forced on board, taken to America, and even if half of the potential slaves died, there was still a hefty profit for the traders. Plantation owners in the south found out quickly that a slave was cheap labor for the dirty work in the sugar cane, cotton, and tobacco fields. 90% of the slave traders and owners were cruel, and thought of the slaves as disposable sub-human property.
Indentured servitude was another method of immigration. many people were so desperate to escape the conditions in their own homeland that they agreed to come to America only to be forced into a form of slavery for a specified time, usually 7-10 years, to pay for the trip. These people, as well as the ones who paid for their trip in other ways, often found themselves in a city where the didn't know the language of most people, so they took jobs that paid little for work no one else would do, lived in clusters of others who spoke their own tongue, usually in slums.
So far, there is a common theme. Greed. The well-to-do exploited the poor and uneducated, and those who did not have the technology to defend themselves.
As the 19th century progressed, a majority of Americans realized that slavery was wrong. Soon, slavery was illegal. (No, the Civil War was not about slavery, but State's rights!) However, instead of seeing people of non-white ethnic background as property, they were seen as being less intelligent. Physical differences between whites and non-whites were emphasized to "prove" the inferiority of non-whites, similar to what Hitler did to promote his Aryan ideas. Votes of white male landowners counted as one vote, but non-white citizens only had 3/5ths of a vote. Women and American Indians did not even have this right. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations of traditions and rituals the non-whites had brought with them from their ancestral lands provoked fear in white people. Can you imagine the fear in the eyes of a plantation owner when one of his former slaves expressed his new-found freedom to don a ceremonial tribal mask while wearing body paint and chanting while dancing to the beat of a drum?
This fear resulted in the forming of groups like the Baldknobbers and the KKK.
Today, the prejudice toward people is largely due to stereotyping we learned while growing up. In southwest Missouri, there is still a huge percentage of people who think black people all eat chitlins, watermelon, and fried chicken; Mexicans all eat tacos and take siestas; Italians all have bushy mustaches, including the ladies; American Indians all drink firewater; Germans all eat sauerkraut; etc. Most of this is even taught in schools to some extent. (Think about it...don't you see liederhosen in the pictures of Germany in the social studies textbooks?)
Another reason for prejudice is crime. Watch Cops sometime. 90% or so of the crack cocaine arrests are black people. 90% of the meth arrests are bikers. Then there are shows like Jerry Springer's...did you ever notice how many black transvestites there are on that show? Music is another thing that causes differences. Think of a trailer park, you probably think of a fat old redneck swilling cheap beer while driving his pickup with a rebel flag in the window, his bleached-blond cocktail waitress cousin-wife, hair in curlers, smoking a cigarette.
Until we can rid ourselves of these pre-judgings (which is a definition of prejudice) there will always be racial problems. While I believe in being proud of one's heritage, the more we apply labels to differentiate ourselves from others the more we drive a wedge between us all. Eliminate the labels, realize we are all one race, the HUMAN race, and things may eventually settle down. Celebrating our ethnic differences is cool. Using our ethnic differences as a means to differentiate ourselves for some advantage, social, economic, or otherwise, is not.