I agree, and didn't mean to imply otherwise, that teaching general tolerance is the route to take. But my understanding of the discussion was if, hypothetically, you were to chose racism or other bullying, which should be focused on.
Also, you can't counter so easily like you said you could, because teaching a child not to bully based on race is much easier to do. And, like you said, focusing on the things we can actually act on is the best route.
Racism is a learned concept--hating somebody on a basis of race has been proven to be a case of taught behavior. So focusing on not having children taught racism, while difficult, is easier than the alternative.
The alternative, of course, is teaching against in inborn behavior. Humans, as a part of our genetic coding, have a capacity to bully and for violence. I know that somebody is going to read this and tell me I'm wrong, and feel free to, but it can be more or less proven without me looking up studies with the three following points:
1) Everybody, at one point in time or another, has said something negative, or 'bullied,' somebody (this excludes, for those of you who believe in perfect saviors, any person who is one with God or has reached enlightenment, etc., for religious purposes). Anybody who thinks he or she has not bullied somebody at some point should think long and hard about it.
2) Bullying is an issue in all cultures and has been for all of written history. It does not matter if two cultures have never come in contact with each other, like smiling or frowning, bullying is universal.
3) Bullying makes evolutionary sense. Anybody who doesn't believe in evolution should ignore this point and use the previous two points as my proving points, seeing how this thread isn't a debate on evolution and nobody wants to get into it. For anybody who does believe in evolution, it makes sense along the following lines: in nature, humans need to be able to work together, but they also compete for many things, most importantly mates. By 'bullying' others, a person is showing his or her dominance. This is why you hear the phrase, "Bullies have low self-esteem." Bullying raises self-esteem by promoting dominance in cases it doesn't lower it through conscience. There's a lot more to the evolutionary perspective of bullying, but that's a basic idea.
Of course, pretty much any behavior that is inborn does not need to be followed, and with mental stimulation, such as SE's strategy, can be rooted out. It's just like any other inborn impulse, from sex to anger. However, just because it can avoided through mental stimulation, doesn't mean it is easy, especially not in all people. The strength of the impulse differs from person to person, and while this is no excuse to be a bully, it is a reason why, despite children are taught not to bully since they are in kindergarten or younger, many still grow to be full-time bullies, and many more grow to bully part-time.
Besides, if you put an end to all bullying through some method or another, you are right in the fact that it would stop people from bullying based on racism. This doesn't mean it would stop racism. Racism can come out in many more ways than strict bullying--inequalities that I, at least, wouldn't consider bullying, would still exist, such as a difference in pay between one race and another, or hiring people of one race and not of another.
Also, you're right--prevention is much more effective than punishment. Punishment as a prevention is one way to do it, but punishment after an offense has happened needs to be more extreme to be equally as successful.