Am I racist?

Just having returned from a trip to the East Coast this past weekend, I was again pushed with my nose toward the fact that maybe I am a racist. Since being in the States, I have caught myself thinking of things that seem extraordinarily discriminating. While traveling by plane this weekend, a young passenger on board began to feel extremely ill. Within an hour, the lady went from being a bubbly passenger to becoming an unresponsive, physical wreck. The confusion and drowsy symptoms she developed are indeed characteristic of an overdose, but why was my intial thought that she had swallowed drugs in a trafficking attempt? Was it just because she was black?\nHow is that possible?\nMy whole life, people see me how they want to see me. I have been categorized as 'white,' as I indeed look European with an olive, Mediterranean-style tan. During a tour through Asia, the village children followed me in droves, giggling at my 'Blanda'-pale face while I was actually a couple of shades darker than any local villager kid running barefooted around my knees.\nMeanwhile I have been labeled 'black' in my native New Zealand where the Maori, the local indigenous, Polynesian people are the minority. I have been eyeballed for wandering 'suspiciously' through a clothing store, as if I was about to leave with half the latest haute-couture stuffed in my knapsack. Perhaps it was because of an excessive summertime tan?\nSo how is it possible that I could be prejudiced? \nIn another incident while traveling through California, I had to stop in an extremely seedy area to perform the evening hotel-hunting ritual per pay phone. My mind was working overtime then as well. On the other side of the street, I had eyeballed an African American who was clearly less well to-do. The individual had soiled, ragged clothes and a dirty, stained cap perched on an unruly mop of hair. He was watching my fellow travelers and me from the other side of the litter-strewn street. Those couple of meters of tar seal did nothing to calm my nerves, as I was convinced the man was about to pull out a weapon and rob us of our bare belongings. The rental car was an obvious tourist vehicle with glowing, shiny plates radiating affluence. \nI then spotted a glint of wheels from the opposite side of the street. The drifter was wheelchair-bound. And shamefully enough, I still insisted we quickly march out of that particular squalid area in order to increase our chances of living to see the next day, as I was convinced even the wheelchair was a ploy in order to con us tourists into feeling a sense of security before being pounced upon.\nI have to face the fact that maybe I have let myself be influenced to a degree of prejudice that I never would have admitted to prior to coming to America. Is it actual prejudice, racism toward ethnicity or just the preconception of blindly seeing the absolute worst in people? All I really know is that my judgements have been tainted.