I don't think that religion is to blame. When you boil down to the basic concepts, what most religions preach isn't bad: Love your neighbor, don't steal/kill, respect the earth. Fanatic nuts are the ones that got carried away, became intolerant of other beliefs, and took it too far. If you can praise your personal god (or not) and be tolerant of others, you're cool.
But racism is plain sick to me. How can you hate and torture someone for a reason that they didn't have any choice in? You cannot pick what race you are, and underneath it all, we are all human with the same basic needs/wants.
To me, it is really intolerance that is one of the worst diseases to plague mankind, second to ignorance.