General Election 2010

However:
Racism is defined more easily than race.
It is a discrimination based on prior misconceptions.
I think you are heading down the Orientalist line with the above comments- 'perceived other'.

Quite. Racism is a problem because it is based on very superficial perceptions of people that are then attempted to be used as a justification for discrimination against them (their 'race' is generally only a couple of superficial characteristics that have no bearing whatsoever on the nature of the discrimination in question).