Automatic alignments in games and other media bother me.

Like you know how you'll have an RPG or fantasy novel or whatever and it'll have multiple races but the various races are automatically aligned to good or evil and whatnot? Like, humans and elves are always good, trolls are always evil, so on and so forth? Sure, there are a few exceptions, but for the main part the universe will follow that rule. Like how in Redwall (lol Redwall), all the, uh, goodbeast will nearly always be good and all the vermin are evil (and stupid), or how in Everquest (I've only read up on it and never played the game so you'll excuse me if I make any mistaken assumptions; it's 4:00 A.M. and I can't see straight anyway), certain races will always be aligned to good or evil which then restricts your class options and other things.

Personally, it bothers me, and it just doesn't make sense in my opinion. We all know that people aren't inherently good or evil from when they're born but develop that way, so why make characters like that? I mean you could say it's the culture but even then culture has never been a predictor of morality (and on an aside, why are races in fantasy media seemingly one-culture exclusive? It's not like all white or black or hispanic or whatever people have the same backgrounds across the land, and that doesn't even account for all the various subcultures that probably aren't racially defined to begin with). So what's the deal? Why not have all races in a fantasy setting be able to choose their alignment rather than ramrodding them into them? Is it because it's easier that way, lets the viewer not have to think? Well screw that; I don't want the easy way out, I want to actually have to figure out where characters stand morally by their actions, words, relationships and so forth, not just because of the way they look. I mean, to me, having whether a character is good or evil be so simply defined as race comes across as something only for children's stories (and even then it's questionable)--or, at worse, xenophobic.

What do you guys think?

[edited] It's easier to figure out who the enemy is if one race or ethnicity is the "enemy." Game designers also wouldn't have to create n(n-1)/2 number of possible combat scenarios. Vilifying the enemy may help players feel better about mercilessly slaughtering hundreds of enemy beings by being exonerated from guilt.
Your point about ethnic ignorance makes sense but is it realistic to expect everyone to know every subculture in the world? It's hard enough figuring out cultures (do you know about the Muslims? or sub-Saharan Africans?) let alone individual subcultures. It's simply too much to ask of people (including you and I).