[douche]

I was actually shocked by the levels of overt racism I saw when I lived in Berlin a few years back. I was living with a family as part of a foreign language exchange program, and the mother was a elementary school teacher. She would baldly say things about Turkish immigrants or Africans that would take me aback. I'm not from the most progressive and enlightened part of the country, but even my racist and crotchety grandfather wouldn't be quite that open about it.

[tormeh]

Makes me wonder whether Americans really have that big of a problem with racism (relative to other countries), or whether they just talk more about it than others.

Btw, if you're interested in what it's like being black in Germany you should check out http://schwarzrotgold.tv/en/ . It's a series of interviews with black Germans, with English subtitles. The front page video is an interview with a mixed guy who as a child worked in an ethnic circus/display of a sort and in his youth was actually kicked out of the Hitlerjugend for being black. He's really thought a lot about this. Extremely fascinating. Tried submitting to HN, but no traction.