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Originally Posted by abaya
Come to Iceland, where Asians of all background get to be called "grjóni" behind their backs, which translates as the Asian equivalent of "nigger" or "wetback." Quite a few Icelanders hate immigrants "contaminating" their country here, and the majority of the factory workers and domestic workers (immigrants) here are Polish and Asian. You'd better believe the Asians, with their easily-identifable dark hair and different features, are the ones that stick out, and for whom there is an entire political party whose platform is based on trying to get them all "back where they came from." It is quite shameful, at the moment, to be an Asian residing in Iceland.
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That's sadly not something that's specific to Iceland.
In my travels, I've seen racism far worse outside the US than in the US. In Russia people from the causcus region (Chechnya, Georgia) are referred to as "black people", when I first heard a Russian refer to some people as black, I looked around confused until it was pointed out to me that the so called "black people" are only slightly darker than Russians in skin color and have black hair. If you look like you're from the causcus region or the middle east, you're screwed. Every time you turn around there will be a not so friendly Russian police officer wanting to see your documents, and the police officer is at best only slightly corrupt as he comes up with excuses to why the person's documents aren't up to standards.
In Germany, racism has been on the rise (particulary in the former East Germany) and the Turkish immigrants are getting the brunt of it. More and more often, I see graffitti in Germany that says, "Deutschland für die Deutsche!" (Germany for Germans!) If you ask a German how he or she feels about the Turkish immigrants, you will get a very watered down version of the extent of the racist attitude, but that's mainly because the Germans are still very sensitive about sounding racist because of their huge historical racism scar. On the other hand, I've been in Germany hanging out in stores run by Turks and generally found them to be nice people only looking to make a life for themselves and their family that is better than what they had in Turkey.
From my experience abroad, I would place the US among the least racist countries. Are we perfect? No, no country is. But are we more sensitive to racial issues than other countries? Absolutely