Racists in the UK tend to feel they have valid reasons, these are some:

-The swamping of our culture by ethnic minorities (they fail to recognize that this has been done countless times before and is an evolutionary process)
-Foreigners are nicking all our jobs (They usually do the jobs the locals don't want to do as they get more from benefits)
-Illegal foreigners are claiming all our benefits (the UK is one of the hardest of all European countries for illegals to enter into)

Both Rubato and Moonlit are touching on the very thin line of what is racist and what is not, its traditional for the English to think the French are snidy bastards and can't be trusted, the Germans arrogant *******s and the Irish a bunch of lazy alcoholics, btw my father's Irish so I'm not ribbing the Irish here;) Now those three crude comments have always been accepted here. The first two against the French and Germans is still stated in a joking manner and nobody cares as there are hardly any French or Germans here. But with the Irish it is different, there are actually more Irish people in the UK than in Ireland so its unacceptable to say these things and it borders on full blown racism to say so. Point here being, that when a significant number of people are immigrants into the country generalized negative comments towards them is racism. Those ethnic minorities that are far more recent and less numerous have less protection and have a lesser understanding of when they are discriminated against, which is probably why Moonlit doesn't seem to think dicing Romaninians to be racist.

That's beside the point, unless you are in fact a thieving drunk nobody has the right to claim otherwise. Why would you judge someone on the actions of someone else? it's just another ugly branch of nationalism that leads to lazy thinking and ignorance.

That's exactly why things like this are being taught in schools (around here anyway) It's a line of reasoning we are trying to get away from, or at least I hope we are.

I'm sure many people would be quite offended by some assumptions, in this case you'd need to be pretty thin skinned, but they'd find it fairly strange nonetheless.

Well, that's why we should all keep our assumptions to ourselves, right? I'm just being realistic. You can't honestly tell me you don't operate under certain assumptions...regardless of how small or non-offensive they may seem. You can try to tell me otherwise, but I'm not sure there is anything you can say to make me feel you don't do this. It's human nature. If you like to keep your desk organized, chances are you put people into certain categories as well. A racist is someone who sees those categories as absolutes.

I don't assume no, I'm puzzled as to why you would see that concept as far fetched. I would be more inclined to look for certain traits based on statistics if that's what you mean, but I certainly wouldn't think those traits would belong to anyone just by association.

also, my desk is a mess :p

When I meet someone face to face I do my best to not make assumptions, so I'm with you there. You giving any credence to statistics is exactly what I'm talking about, though. As much as you want to think your mind is judgement free, it's not. The human brain is just too stubborn.

It's what I'm talking about as well. From a more extreme sense, but I think I have a rather cynical view of humanity in general.

Darren Scully on the left looks a bit like Ian Beale from Eastenders:yikes:

http://insideireland.ie/wp-content/u.../11/Scully.jpg

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-imag...3/beale460.jpg

The validity of those arguments aside (hello, strawman!); those are arguments people who are anti-immigrant would make. A racist, on the topic of immigration, would just want to limit immigration to those of the same race.

So, for example, if citizens of Nation X had an average IQ of 85, you'd be fine with saying most of them are dumbasses?

Come on, you're talking as if "Every British person I've met is obnoxious" is just as valid an objective assessment as a scientifically conducted study.

If there really was a way of accurately determining the average IQ of a nation, you ought to find all of them are roughly the same, and any extremities are imbalanced.

A racist in Europe is anti-immigration, his/her anger is vented towards those of a different colour or culture coming in from the outside and threatening their way of life. Its much rarer to actually find people that just hate another race or culture just for the sake of it (there is normally a trigger factor or reason for their way of thinking). Your definition is actually pigeon-holing anti-immigration and racism into two different categories, whilst not disagreeing with the point you've raised its very much horses for courses. In the USA anti-immigration is very un-American, as the country was built on immigration so the anti-immigration card doesn't carry the same weight that it does in Europe. The American form of racism tends to go for segregation, as in my kind shouldn't live with your kind etc (as seen with segregation in the southern states) So as you see, racism in the USA is somewhat different in practice to that of racism in Europe which is focused around anti-immigration.