Racism? Not here, Sambo.

Racism is over. Finished. Kaput. It is no more. The agent of change was not what we expected, however. It wasn't liberal values, multiculturalism, integration or legislation; it wasn't any of those ideas set in motion by those who wanted to see it stamped out, no. What brought racism to an end was, of all things, semantics. Unfortunately the net result is that it hasn't done a thing but make it worse.

It's the most laboured cliché of our age; prefacing every hateful comment about people with different ethnicities with “I'm not racist, but...”. Bizarrely, though, even this verbal fig leaf seems to be falling into disuse, as people increasingly make sweeping and unjust generalizations about black, brown or yellow people without apology. Why? Because they are not racists; or more correctly, they don't consider themselves to be. Nick Griffin and the BNP, Nigel Farrago and UKIP and right wing media bile ducts like Jon Gaunt, Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips in Britain, and people like Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh and Bachmann in the US, along with the Tea Party will tell you that black people are congenitally lazy, promiscuous and criminal, and when challenged, look you straight in the eye and, with a mixture of hurt and bafflement tell you simply that 'I am not racist' and believe it, because to them, those generalizations, shot through the prism of their prejudices, are simply the obvious truth.

It has come to a point where I am coming to have a grudging respect for Roy 'Chubby' Brown and the KKK. They may be hideous excrescences masquerading as human beings, but at least they're honest excrescences.

“So, Mick” I hear you ask; “How has this come about?”. Well, as it happens, I have a theory. It's to do with semantics, the right-wing media, the word 'unreasonable' and the idea of the positive stereotype.

You see, we all know that it's wrong to racially stereotype or to make sweeping generalizations based on ethnicity, which is why none of us think we do. We think, when we make blanket statements like 'black people have more fun', 'white people are law-abiding' or 'asian people are hard-working' that as whatever we are saying is basically positive and nobody from within those communities objects, we are not generalizing; we are somehow stating a truth; I've certainly never met a black man who has argued against the myth of the black man and his super-sized ladypleaser. And so, the positive stereotype enters the area of normal conversation; not because it's necessarily true, but because it goes unchallenged it becomes the perceived truth. From here, it's a short step, of course to the other side of the coin. If white people are more law-abiding, we can assume that black people are more criminal – if black people have more fun, then whites are uptight and repressed: the Polish are hard workers, so the Polish must be taking all our jobs, right? Muslims are proud of their culture – well that's just saying that they don't integrate. And so it begins.

In an ideal world, a racist should be anyone who holds a point of view; good, bad or indifferent, about anybody based solely on their ethnicity, but because nice people like to say nice things about their neighbours, we don't, of course, think that. It's OK to say the nice things that are true; or are at least perceived to be true. But sadly, not all people are nice, and not all truths are the same. To the small-minded, cold-hearted herd, it is the dark side of these truisms which become real. To them, the notion that everything wrong with society is the fault of people who are in some way not like them becomes fact. It becomes what any 'reasonable' person would think; and what is a racist? A racist is someone who holds unreasonable opinions about people of other ethnicities. That's why so many supporters of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin say that he did not act out of racism. To them, it is obvious that Trayvon, armed as he was with snacks, was somebody who decent (white) people needed to be protected from. Imagine the sick and misguided thought process that took them there.

Why do people dislike people who are different, anyway? There is certainly an abundance of theories about that; but here's mine. In general, our lives don't turn out the way we want them to. We aren't, by and large, as rich, attractive and popular as we thought we were going to be; our partners aren't as attractive as we want, our sex lives are boring compared to porn and we lack the authority and charisma we think should be ours by right.

So who do we blame? Not ourselves, obviously; we're the victims here. Not our peer group – they've been shafted as badly as we have Not the rich and powerful – the people we aspire to be and who have all the things we want are our spiritual brethren; they may not know it, but they are.

So if it isn't us who are responsible for the shittiness of our lives, then it can only be the fault of, of course, them.

So what do we do? We don't give an inch. If you're in a group of people who make throwaway remarks about pakis and ragheads, don't let it go. It's tough sometimes, as I know from personal experience. Nobody wants to act like a pompous dick, but if you don't make it clear that you're not one of them, they assume that you are, and that is a step closer to them thinking every white person is; or every non-muslim, non-gypsy, non jew is. Don't let the snide and the corrosive remark pass by, because, as the cliché says; if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.