re: Is "racism" genetic or learned?

Most white people have learned to not even ask another person what their ethnicity or "heritage" is. A minority with an agenda will jump all over that.

So, these days even "just noticing" something needs to be kept to oneself. In fact, the last "mistake" I made of this nature was over a decade ago. There was a guy at work who was always talking about his Mexican heritage, which was okay with me. He was kind of a jerk, so I didn't go out of my way to interact with him. One day he stopped by my office and started talking about what a great athlete he was, and I simply asked him if he had played much soccer. He got all bent out of shape and said that was a racist question. Of course, he made a point of mentioning it to everybody in the office, like I had slapped him or something.

But, lesson learned. I filter like hell at work now, and I've been doing that for years. For a person with an agenda can twist just about anything into an insult.