Essay About Sensitive Question And Different Factors

My Philosophy Class
I have a draft due tomorrow for my philosophy class. The question I chose is three words, but a very hard one to answer. Its not only hard because it is a personal and sensitive question, but because there is so many different factors and the definition of race is so fluid that as long as you can successfully argue it according to your definition, youll get it right. Okay, enough with my 30-40 word crisis statement. My professor gave us two questions to choose from: Is the racism of today a water down version of the racism back then, or are you racist? I choose the latter one and I had the idea to say that, yes, I am racist because I human and therefore pre-judge and yada yada yada, but Im not that sure anymore. Am I racist because I have racist tendencies (like stereotyping, something which all humans do whether they like it or not) or is there a criterion to be called a racist? I think its safe to say the the ists have its roots in pre-judging, which again, WE ALL DO. Because we judge, would that make us all racist, classist, sexist, etc? Or is that just saying we are human and dont have all the knowledge in the world? Would make being a racist be someone who doesnt realize this and does not open him or herself up to learning about different races and the effects of discrimination and then tries to diminish those affects? But wait, before we get into that, what is racism? And before that, what is race? There is no simple answer to these questions and each person, if asked this, would take different things into consideration. The question is, what do I think, but Im also curious on what you guys think.