The original title of this node was something like "This 'Your people oppressed my people, shame on you' attitude is racism" --- an angry, ill-phrased mouthful of bile, now mercifully abbreviated by some e2god whose identity is unknown to me. But whatever. The "attitude" described in the bilious mouthful does indeed qualify as racism if you define racism as discrimination against the members of a certain ethnic group on the basis of group membership alone. However, that "attitude" is pretty darn mild compared to segregation, apartheid, Japanese-American internment camps, concentration camps, the genocide of Native Americans by European settlers, and the Spanish Inquisition, to name just a few nasty instances of ethnic cleansing in human history. Furthermore, regardless of whether an individual actively participates in the oppression that his or her ancestors inflicted on other groups, he or she may well reap its benefits, or even (gasp!) passively perpetuate it. No one is innocent. We all inherit the sins of our fathers (and mothers, of course). But we can learn from those mistakes and our own, and do our best to prevent their repetition.