yes, it's common outside the south and it's common in areas where there are very few blacks. my students were mainly from New England. As for it being ethnocentric, Angela's point is that it may be described as a form of class racism because it's about the marking of bodies. The other issue, as Charles might point out, is about institutionalized, structural power.
My son's friends call him a "criggah". To them, it's a positive term for a white person who is like them--as much as a white person can be. It's meant to distinguish between fake "wiggers" who merely dress black and criggahs who _act_ black and have black values--at least according to my son's friends. That means, for instance, he "sends back the stare down." In public, they told me, whites won't look blacks in the eye. They avert their eyes. It also has to do with willingness to defend the homies and their families. It has to do with what kind of girls you like--big booties and meaty thighs most import, tits aren't that important.
Is that racism? I don't think it is.
My son's b-ball coach (white) mirrored this attitude recently when he called the team a bunch of pussies. (He also got banned from coaching for four games for calling a ref a white asshole.) He said, "You're all a bunch of lily white-assed pussies. There are only three of you who'd take on the guy who called your mother a whore. They know how to step on someone's dick if they get in your face. You don't know how to be a team. They do. If Nieves' mama was dissed, Nieves would step up and so would Walker and Brown."
The three he was referring to were the kids from the "inner city" school -- where he'd also gone to school. They were black, latino, and white.
Is he racist? He's saying that there's a set of social values shared by these kids by virtue of where they grew up. He valorizes these attitudes and behaviors.
The other night, I was waiting for the kids at the mall, parked outside with the window rolled down. I saw a father and two teens boys walk by my car. As they did, the father shook his head and said, "That's why they call 'em n-words." I couldn't figure out what he was talking about at first, but then I saw the pimped out black car, volume cranked, driving by. I'm guessing that, if he's like others on the topic, he wouldn't say that the behavior is about skin color, biology, genetics or anything else they "can't help." Rather, he'd say it was a form of behavior associated with "those people" and he might even point out that there are white people who behave similarly. The "ism" here isn't attached to skin color or even the notion that there are races who just behave differently, no matter what. It's attached to what these folks think is a form of social pathology that has to do with poor upbringing, values, etc.
Kelley