My heart wants to say, 'absolutely not'. My head says, 'Yes, some people in Britain are extremely racist, some people make racist statements,some people behave in a racist way'.
An article in the Daily Mail earlier this year stated that a third of the people surveyed admitted making comments or being involved in discussions which could be considered racist, 40% made the statement "I'm not a racist, but........." when discussing race issues.
Is Britain a racist nation? One in three Brits 'admits to being racist', according to poll
In my own profession, things are no better. A report in 2001 'Racism in Medicine' published by the King's Fund (a health charity) found that 'discrimination against ethnic minorities entering medicine begins at medical school and lasts until the day they retire from practice'.
Additionally, there was found to be an 'alarming level' of institutional racism in the National Health Service.
Report reveals racism in medical profession
Anecdotally, in our department, I have dealt with patients who have refused to be seen or examined by Medical Staff from different ethnic groups (including those from India), I have intervened when patients have made comments about the staff, or about other patients.
I have called the police when a patient spat into the face of a colleague from India.
The National Health Service itself does not escape attention, a study found that applicants from ethnic minorities found it harder to get a job, were more likely to be bullied and were more likely to have grievances taken out against them.
NHS accused of racism - Telegraph
The statistics make no better adding where education is concerned, between 2007 and 2011, 88,000 racist incidents were recorded. Now, it is obvious that some of these may be due to ignorance (or innocence) of children, but it still makes for grim reading:
Schools saw 87,000 racism cases
A recent article in The Independent found that there was still racism within the UK police force.
Anti-racism smear scandal: Police targeted the sister of black paratrooper who died in custody
An article in the Guardian in April reported that Black and Asian Police Officers in the Metropolitan Police Force still believe that the force is 'institutionally racist', this coming years after the murder of a young, black teenager, is shocking. And distressing.
Metropolitan police still institutionally racist, say black and Asian officers
On a personal level, many of my colleagues are from India and Pakistan. To those of us in the ED family, they are our family, no different to the rest of us.
It saddens me to say that, to many British people, views South Asians are seen to be inferior.