No one wakes up one day and says "I'm going to start hating black/gay/muslim/whatever people!" Bigotry is learned behavior: even if some degree of tribalism is

No one wakes up one day and says "I'm going to start hating black/gay/muslim/whatever people!" Bigotry is learned behavior: even if some degree of tribalism is innate, there's absolutely nothing built into our DNA that leads people to hold any particular belief about any particular group. People become bigoted for a reason. It would be absurd to argue that the Nazi's attrocities were simply caused for no other reason than germany being inherently racist and anti-Semitic - the loss of WW1 and the subsequent economic hardships drove millions of people to support a demagogue who would otherwise have remained at best a fringe voice. Likewise today, bigotry can explain how a demagogue seizes power, but it's not the why. And this extends to more than just bigotry. Availability of guns explains how the violent crime rate is so high, but not why people would turn to violence. Opioid availability explains the how of the opioid epidemic, but not why people would abuse them in the first place. Persistent problems tend to be mere symptoms of underlying issues that go unaddressed.