Befriends

In Olaf Stapledon's book Star Maker, the Earthling protagonist befriends the creature Bvalltu from another world. They and others travel through the stars astrally, as they discover different beings.

Racism may stem from an individual's "sampling problem" of other individuals of other races. If one befriends an intelligent or well-to-do member of another race, one develops an appreciation of that race. In statistics, one knows that intelligence distribution in a population is shaped by the bell curve, at the ends of which are extremes of the intelligence gradient. Granted, what each person looks for in another person may not be intelligence or wealth, but some other attributes, like physical beauty or emotional quotient.