Is There Really Such a Thing as Racism?

No, because there is no such thing as "race".

The genetic differences between groups of people with varying physical characteristics are negligible, and in fact are exceeded by the genetic variation within each of these groups. In fact, so-called "racial markers" such as skin color, hair texture, and eye shapes can just as easily be replaced by "races" that are defined by hair color (i.e., the "red-haired people"), eye color, height, etc.

For that matter, common skin hues can be found among people who share few other similarities; i.e., people from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, and Australia Aboriginals.

That said, groups that have been geographically isolated tend to share similar physical characteristics and a similar culture. Most often, when people talk about "race", they are in fact referring to a culture that is shared among people who coincidentally share some general physical characteristics. In fact, some groups with a common culture have been called a "race" when they don't even share well-defined physical characteristics; Jews and "Hispanics" come to mind, as both groups span the entire spectrum of human appearance.

The idea of "race" is appealing because people like to categorize things, even if categorizations are inappropriate. For example, a person with a "white" parent and a "black" parent is considered "black" -- like politicians Obama and Rangel. Why aren't they considered white? At one time, they might have been called "mulattoes", but now they are "black". Are these changing labels the product of scientific breakthroughs in biology? Or are they just social conventions? And how about their children, and their children's children? What are they? Fact is, they might fall into many categories of (sub) culture, intelligence, language, etc., but their race, like everyone else's race, is undefined.