It is racism but not in the way your used to, calling someone a paki or black bastard , white trailer trash or something else over here is quite common between friends and associates and even in the workplace, of course you get the proper nasty racist skinhead etc cunts, everywhere does, and no-one likes them, but generally a lot of the "racist" stuff you see on here is general banter between mates and shouldnt be taken in the literal offensive sense and a lot of the people that say it have friends from all corners of the globe and will say it in front of them as well as away from them.
Another interesting point to note is that unlike the U.S. and other places that consistently show white/black/hispanic only ares of towns etc, the U.K. just doesnt have that and hasnt for the last 10-20 years, there are no places in the U.K. where whole housing estates/towns are all one race/creed of people, everyone has HAD to mix for the last 10years so everyone just gets on most of the time.