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Depending how you define "race" it's essentially the same thing as ethnic discrimination or racism. Nationalism's the same thing.
It accounts for why Xians are deemed an "ethnicity" in parts of the world. They're a different group.
Then there's the entire oxytocin news-blip recently. Oxytocin, a hormone that was identified as promoting empathy and affection, it seems, crucially involve group boundaries: It only promotes empathy for those of your own group, however that's defined: clan, tribe, ethnicity, race, nation. (Of course, as people shift their views they can expand their definition of group, so that "group" becomes flexible: Now I may defend my clan against others in my tribe, but if my tribe is threatened by others of my ethnicity I'll defend fellows tribesmen I'd have tried to kill last week.)
It's interesting to look at some of the research. Common narratives and shared intepretations of history and events are crucial to forming groups. If you destroy the common narrative, you can destroy group solidarity.
Those in your group get a lot of slack. If two people do precisely the same thing and one is identified as a member of your group and the other as a member of an opposing group, most people will perform the same mental trick: They will adduce culturally appropriate reasons for justifying the person in their group; they'll come up with excuses and justifications as to why he did it and why it's not so bad. If the person was outside the group, then they manage to find the worst possible motivations for the act, there can be no justification. People try to stay "in" their group because new group boundaries can be erected: If a person does something really reprehensible and group solidarity doesn't force members of the group to continue to consider him a member, he's out--and despised.
This explains a lot of ethnic and religious tensions. It solidifies ethnic hatred and racism, tribalisms by other names. I personally think it accounts for a lot of American politics, as well. (In other words, we're primates.)
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