ravi wrote:
> If true, only trivially so (demographics/wealth, etc: Americans tend to be > white).
My point (and I think probably Bhaskar's point too) is that European society outside of a few urban metropolises is pretty horrendously racist.
Now, whether it's *more* racist than American society, I think that would be difficult and meaningless to argue, but I think that one substantial difference is this: whereas it's a fairly hegemonic idea in American society that the society is "multi-racial", so that expressions of racism often have to take subtle or veiled forms, in Germany (obviously the European society I'm most familiar with), it's fairly well-accepted in the mainstream that it's "supposed to be" an ethnically homogeneous society, that minorities are acceptable only to the extent that they are "integrated", and that the children of immigrants aren't "real" Germans.
So white Americans visit places like Berlin, go "oh, functioning public transportation, a still-existent welfare state, and health care" (all of which I agree are good things!) and ignore the nasty racism that is still a very prominent part of public discourse, because it doesn't affect them anyway.