I think like many people have already said, there is racism in every country and in every culture. In some places it's more obvious, and in some places it's looked down upon, but there is a general tendency to trust "your kind" and to distrust "them". Not sure if does any good comparing the racism in one country to another.
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However, my personal theory is that racism now a days has a lot more to do with classism. It's more often than not that the poor are discriminated against regardless of their skin color, though they do tend to be darker. Given that all of Latin America had a population of dark skinned natives, with white skinned colonizers (who ended up being the ruling class) people associated fair skin with wealth and power. There has been a lot of integration here since those days, but on the whole people in Recoleta are lighter than those in Moreno, and those in Recoleta also tend to be wealthier. It's just the result of the history here.
It probably doesn't do any good to compare, but having had a lot of experience both here and in various countries in Europe, I find that I do automatically. There are fundamental differences between the racism here and the racism in Europe for obvious reasons. I’ve lived in France and Spain and have travelled extensively in Europe, and have experienced the anti-Arab racism in the flesh (I’ve also been called a ‘fucking Paki’ in London)! Obviously, not everyone thinks like that, but it can be hard to know when the vocal minority wants to give you a piece of their mind and nobody stands up for you. It doesn't really get to me - and of course it's much less frequent than just day to day street harassment that all women get - because I know who I am and where I am from.
Here, while there is definitely an anti-immigrant element - I also find myself standing up for Chinese people a lot here - it’s a lot more complex than that, more of an idea that people should ‘know their place’. Even now, they are constructing buildings in my area with 1/2/3 bedroom apartments and 'dependencias'. I do not think it's irrelevant or a thing of the past at all, unfortunately. Someone like me has no place at all in this worldview - from any perspective - so I think it can make people a little uncomfortable on some level.
I’m a dual US/ UK national and have lived for many years in both countries. As someone who stands at the perfect vantage point between the twin superiority (wrt the rest of Latin America and basically most anyone who isn’t white) and inferiority (wrt Europe/ the US, much as they will deny it) complexes here, and grew up with an Argentine mother who grew up in poverty, leaving school at age 6 to be a live-in maid, I recognize that my point of view is pretty rare. I do feel like a human Rorschach test sometimes!
I don't often get mistaken for a westener, and so I've also had the opportunity to hear a lot of people complain to me about the US, in particular. I've heard people say very hateful things about the States, for example "I hate that country, it should be wiped off the map." I don't think this reflects the majority of people's thinking and I think they often do treat Westeners very well, but there is definitely some anti-Western sentiment lurking about as well. This is especially true in leftist circles. I think it's the similar kind of thinking that says "that country is what keeps us poor, and they need to go".
Ahh, yes, the leftists here. I tried to make inroads there when I first arrived a decade ago, but learned quickly that one of my Berkeley professors was dead on when he said "the easiest thing in the world is to adopt an ideology - you'll never have to think again!". I will say that the leftists here do seem to love their Coca-Cola etc and don't seem to realize that we vote every day with our wallets. Incidentally (I think I've mentioned this elsewhere on this forum), I once caught one of these Marxism-for-beginners blowhards - a professor at the UBA who claimed that all Americans were basically idiots - plagiarizing his entire presentation from the internet, without so much as changing the formatting. The article had been written by a UC Berkeley professor. Oh, the laughs!
I fail to see how this 'teaching style' (vs, you know, actually teaching the students) is going to move this country forward but what do I know... I really hope that he is the exception because otherwise this country is really in for it for many decades to come!
