No, definitely not. Racism, in my opinion, comes in two forms: Social and Personal. Social racism is the kind we most often hear about with major issues. It's is something that is, to a varying degree) ingrained in certain societies. These society benefit from racism in their own ways. In a Western society, social racism against white people only exists in certain communities, but not on a general basis. However, it's much more entrenched in different parts of the world against varying skin colours and cultures. In short, social racism is "us vs them" mentality where anyone who is the "us" are not the victims of the social racism but the oppressors. The social racism here can also be taught to the "them" category to target certain sub-groups within their own: e.g. One group of people of colour such as black people (this is a made up example example) harassing brown people. Personal racism is a prejudice against a race or races. Anyone can have this can be targeted towards any race/skin colour, including ones own. Personal racism is more a prejudice than a social issue (it's still an issue) and can seem like social racism when masses of like minded people come together (in some cases even developing into social racism). There are a few things to note about this though. Racism exists for people not just to hate (that would just be prejudice) but also to gain from. In my opinion, this can be on a person or small-group/community level, even so small as the satisfaction or detest of the results. Another thing is that there is a difference between racism and retaliation against ones attacker. When black people, for example, retaliate against all white people, this isn't usually due to personal or social racism, but because their experience with white people has so often resulted in negative interactions and hate towards theirselves. Think of it like a war. Two sides are fighting and killing each other for whatever reason. Most likely, one side was attacked first so they other fought back. Even though you know that when you're attacking that some of the people you're fighting don't believe in the fight, they are still standing by/supporting it and letting it happen. When you eventually attack their bases and country, there are definitely wholly innocent people, but they look and are "sided" with your enemy, so the difference doesn't matter in those moments. Is the action excusable? No. Is it understandable? Yes. I hope this clears some stuff up.