There have been quite cases of racism in the news recently, so this question seems relevant. Notable examples of racism include:

• In Ireland, a large riot by more than 500 right-wing extremists, as reported by the BBC. This shocked many, because Ireland has a reputation for welcoming immigrants and tourists. The BBC article points out that "At the moment - in contrast with most of the democratic world # - no politician [in Ireland] has been elected to any office - either at local council or national level - on a far-right platform", but the riot gives cause to worry that change is afoot in the nation's politics.
• The surprise victory of Geert Wilders' PVV (Freedom Party) in the national election this week in the Netherlands, as reported by the BBC, with analysis of the implications by the BBC. The Dutch also have a strong reputation of welcoming visitors and immigrants, and is the easiest country through which to enter the EU. There is a significant chance that the Netherlands will enact tougher immigration laws as a result of the PVV victory.
• The racist outpourings around the world against both side of the Israel/Hamas war. There is, of course, fault on both sides of the conflict, but many people voicing opinions on the matter are unable to show any balance in their views, and the war has let the genie of previously suppressed racism out of the bottle.
• In Poland there has long been understandable anti-Russian sentiment. Now the undercurrent of anti-Ukrainian feelings, which have been around since at least the end of World War II, are on the rise, triggered by issues over Ukrainian grain imports and military and financial support being given as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is more information about Poland's anti-Ukrainian sentiment on Wikipedia.
• In Italy there are a lot of protests against illegal immigrants, of which Italy gets more than its fair share due to its proximity to Africa. These protests are spilling over into Italian politics, making the country more racist.
• In Spain the tolerance for immigrants, both legal and illegal, has been drastically reduced. Spain has illegal immigration from North Africa, for similar reasons to Italy, which is having financial and social consequences for the country. Legal immigrants have also had huge impacts, with locals priced out of the housing market because of foreigners buying and renting property. Shops in many areas now stock less local produce and more products imported from Germany (Sauerkraut, German sausages and German beer) and the UK (baked beans, HP sauce, steamed puddings and English beer), targeting the ex-pat community. Bars and restaurants have also undergone a change to accommodate the ex-pats, accompanied by price rises.
• Since the election of Viktor Orban to Prime Minister of Hungary, the country has been a thorn in the side of the EU Commission and a hotbed of racism. It doesn't look like things will change any time soon. Hungary refuses to honour their commitments to the EU, in terms of accepting refugees.
• France, despite government policy and established legislation, continues to have outbreaks of racism, as described on Wikipedia. Racism against blacks, Arabs, Jews, Germans (the French have still not forgiven WWII - Germans visiting France often pretend, in vain, to be English to avoid the racism), more recently against Britain (due to Brexit) and others is fairly common.
• Greece has understandable animosity towards Turkey; the nations have long running disputes over the ownership of Cyprus and several Aegean islands, which has led to armed conflict in the past. More recently there has been a lot of anti-German feeling, after the EU financial bail-out of Greece and the strict austerity measures that were imposed as a condition of the bail-out.
• Since the break up of the former Yugoslavia, The Balkans has had its racism exposed. Pretty much every Balkan nation hates at least one of the others, and the Serbs are hated by all the others. The divides are not only racial, but also religious. The racist hate has led to horrific atrocities, for example the massacre in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo.
• Even Sweden, once one of the most liberal and open nations, has a significant racist undercurrent, and some rather extreme institutionalised racism, as described on Wikipedia.

Of course, just because a nation has racism doesn't mean that it is getting worse, but my impression is that it is indeed getting worse. It is easy for a country's population to be open to immigration and equal opportunities for immigrants when that population has jobs, good housing and money, but that is no longer the case. Economic downturns due to the Covid pandemic and cyclic effects, inflation of food prices, the effort to be carbon neutral, and the impact of aging populations on pension systems and retirement ages has made people less willing to share their shrinking piece of the cake with foreigners, whether actually immigrants or simply different. The financial impacts are inevitably increasing racism. This is not so different to the situation with environmental issues: people are willing to recycle, to buy greener products etc. when they have enough money, but when times are hard they are not.

My god, what century are the NFL (National [American] Football League) living in?

This report on the BBC describes how the NFL has finally agreed to stop using a racially biased algorithm that assumes black players have a lower level of cognitive function to calculate compensation for concussion victims, and not because they finally got a sense of morals, but because they were sued.

This kind of racial prejudice has been illegal in the USA (and virtually all western nations) for decades. Did the NFL fail to notice, or did they just think that nobody would care?

The more I read and think about this report on The Guardian, the angrier I get.

I assume that Senator Graham meant the statement as a denial of racism in South Carolina, his home state, but it comes across as confirmation (as if we needed any more confirmation) that there is systemic racism in the USA.

He said that African Americans and immigrants can [safely] go anywhere in South Carolina, as long as they are conservative. The word conservative is ambiguous in this context, but from his other comments that blacks and immigrants "just have to share our values", it seems that he means politically conservative (i.e. Republican), rather than a comment on their behaviour or dress.

To paraphrase Lindsey Graham into language more suitable for the subject matter, he is saying that "everything will be fine, so long as them niggers don't get uppity". Nowadays, in America, uppity means things like "driving while black", "babysitting while black", "operating a business while black", wanting to vote, expressing an opinion to a police officer, wanting an equal wage for equal work, wanting an education, and defending your home against armed invaders who turn out to be cops. In the past, being uppity also meant riding in the front of the bus, using a toilet designated for whites, sitting in the whites-only part of a restaurant and wanting to be free. Clearly, things have improved over the years for minorities, but not by much.

Senator Graham's words are totally unacceptable; the man is a dyed in wool racist.

Donald Trump shocked many people, both within and outside the USA, recently, with his tweets about how members of "The Squad" (Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib) should go back to where they came from, as reported here, by the BBC.

There was one grain of truth in what Trump said: that the women "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe". Since three of the four come from the USA, Old Yeller's criticism (of his own government) is absolutely correct.

He attempted to defend himself from accusations of racism, saying that "I don't have a racist bone in my body!". Leaving aside the small issue that it is unclear if he has any bones at all in his body, due to the ample covering of fat, his protestations remind me of a phrase that I have heard before. Any readers who have been to South Africa, or who have white South African friends, have probably heard sentences which start with "You understand, I'm not a racist, but ....."

This got me thinking. Is it entirely unthinkable that the retard president might try to introduce apartheid in the USA?

There has been a lot in the news lately (e.g. here, and here) about confederate flags. The problem is not with Dukes of Hazard style rednecks painting them on their cars or flying them at their homes. The problem is confederate flags being flown from State Capitols and other official buildings; one state, Mississippi, has the confederate flag as one panel of their state flag.

Not being American, I don't really understand why this problem exists in the first place. Why are people so proudly celebrating a group of states which fought a war with the rest of the USA, and lost; don't they understand that it is over? Are there some moral or social values that the confederate states embodied which should be preserved and celebrated? The only values that spring to my mind when thinking about the confederacy are slavery, elite-ism, and the uneven distribution of wealth.

The US government seems to be in a quandary about what they should do about these flags. What a shame that there is nowhere else in the world where they can look for a suggestion; somewhere that had something similar in recent history. Oh, hang on a minute, there is. How about Germany, and the Nazis? Not only are Nazis now frowned on by mainstream German society, but their symbol, the swastika, is illegal in Germany and Austria, as are other Nazi-associated symbols. It seems to have worked, and no-one is complaining about losing their rights. So, Mr. Obama, there is your answer: make the confederate flag illegal.

This BBC story was interesting.

About 300 people, survivors of the holocaust and family members of other survivors, placed an advertisement in the New York Times condemning Israel: "As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine".

If anyone else had made such a statement, Israel would have condemned and dismissed it as anti-Semitic, but that argument does not hold water when the critics are Jewish victims of Nazi ethnic cleansing.

It is long past time that this point was made. What Jews suffered at the hands of Nazis, the centuries-long history of persecution of Jews all around the world, and what Israel has suffered due to attacks by Palestinians, although cruel and inexcusable, do not justify what Israel has done to the Palestinians. For Israel to deserve the sympathy and support of the rest of the world, it needs to show that is holds the moral high-ground, rather than behaving like another rogue nation.

I find myself rather bemused by the sentiments behind this story, describing how Senator Cruz has renounced his Canadian citizenship.

Senator Cruz's aide Catherine Frazier said: "Being a US senator representing Texas, it makes sense he should be only an American citizen". How exactly does it "make sense"? Is there a suggestion that, while acting as a US senator, he cannot be trusted to have appropriate priorities? If that is so, renouncing his Canadian citizenship has hardly removed all his sympathies and ties to Canada. It has not changed the fact that he was born there, and was possibly educated there and has family and friends there. Did he, as part of the renunciation of his second citizenship, have the Canadian parts of his memory excised: does he now say "about", rather than "aboot"?

The American press, and by implication the American public, does seem to be particularly obsessed with "foreigners" holding political office: it is impossible for anyone not born a US citizen to be president (bad luck, Arnold Schwarzenegger). I find it odd that the USA, the champion of democracy and equal rights (for people of different religions, ethnicity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.), is so attached to policies about its politicians which are, essentially, racist.

In the modern world, more and more people are geographically mobile, and live and work in countries other than their land of birth and citizenship. Time to change the rules and public expectations on this issue. The issue is not really any different than someone holding more than one job at a time: you require (often in a contract) that they deal professionally with any conflicts of interest that arise. If you can't trust someone to put the country where they hold political office first in the exercise of that office, then I have a radical idea: don't elect them in the first place!