Clarifying language - Racism

I've ranted a fair bit about people misusing the words 'literally' and 'chaos'. While it infuriates me, such misuse isn't that damaging when compared to the misuse of the word 'racism'.

Let me cut straight to the point.

Racism means believing that certain races are superior or inferior to others. This impacts greatly on the way some people have construed some of my recent postings.

1) Nothing I say about Islam can be called racist because Islam is not a race. There are Muslims in West Africa, India and Indonesia. I believe Islam's way of life is inferior to my way of life. That is no different to saying I think the Green Party is better than Labour, the Beatles are better than the Rolling Stones or that Man United are better than Liverpool.

2) In my post 'Witness to a crime in Brussels' I ended by asking, "do I need to mention that he was Arab?" This was a serious question. Imagine you had been the witness and that the young man had been black. Would you have omitted this from retelling?

My point is very simple: when most white people I know tell a story involving a black or Arab person the race is usually mentioned. Why do we do this?