I believe there is insufficient willingness to acknowledge the importance as well as the unimportance of race. Race matters in the basic physical sense, and may therefore affect intelligence, but it does not matter politically in most periods of history, especially periods predating the early modern, which began in the 1500's. The nations of Mexico and Spain are mixtures of white, black and Amerindian race and skin color, and that was clearly considered completely acceptable in the past. To me, this shows that racism is an absurdity, invented in the early modern period. It is contradicted by any genuine belief in tribe, nation, clan, king, emperor, or religion.

We can acknowledge race in it's basic physical sense, but any one who considers his race more important than his most particular loyalties we must consider a traitor. This form of treachery an be exemplified by the actions of the Ustasha, the Croatian Nazis who exterminated Serbs and gypsies because of race. They are traitors to their nation and religion because they sent people who spoke their language and worshipped in catholic churches to death camps merely because of race. The same can be said of the German Nazis and Hutu.

This also shows why religious violence is almost the polar opposite of racism. Any man who would torture Jews out of concern for their salvation obviously dosn't care about race. The medieval Spaniards definitely didn't.