World of prejudices

My last two weekends I spent with my old good friends, chatting about life and recalling in our memories our school times. I have noticed one thing about relations between young Russians and Latvians here in Latvia, which might not be common, but this is how it is sometimed thought. One of my Russian friends (and I can say I have the same experience) recalled that while studing at the university, she faced situations, when an ethnical topic has been raised in a seminar discussion, her Latvian colleagues were complaining that Russians do not want to integrate into the society, (do not want to learn Latvian language, are not loyal to the state etc) but immediatelly adding the phrase: "Annechka, this is not about you. You are really cool Russian!". One week later I heard from my another Russian friend: "At our fitness club we have an administrator Ieva. Although she is half Latvian and half Belarussian, she is really cool and interesting person. And, you know, her boyfriend is a "pure" Latvian guy. And imagine, he is just great as well as his relatives who attend our club."

So, does it mean that we are trying to convince ourselves that one ethnical group is bad a priori, but there are some exceptions? It seems that we live in a world of prejudices, which are imposed on us by politicians with nationalistic agenda from both sides.