Mr. Louis generalizing is not only incorrect but unfair.

We have assimilated about 3 million inmigrants (up to 10% of our native population) in less than 10 years without many incidents. In UK there have been ethnic minorities for decades, and in the US for centuries.

Spain has racists and non-racists. There are 3,000 proffesional soccer players and less than 10 are black because spanish blacks are less than a 0,5% of the population (the majority of the blacks that live in Spain have come here in the last 10 years and come from Senegal, Marble Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leona, etc). Therefore, your statements about a "black percentage" in our police or our national team has, as you may see, no sense.

Racist political parties in Spain get less than 30,000 votes (over 25 million). Neo-nazis in Madrid are less than 2,000 (over 4 million). Of course a lot of people may be considered racist or have racist attitudes (like in some soccer matches as we have condemned here) but you can't judge an entire country by the actions of a very small minority.

Fernando

My deepest excuses for my previous message (I've modified it). I should have thought it twice before posting and I have regreted it from the very moment I clicked the "Add Reply" button.

I've been having dinner outside with some friends and I asked them if they thought we spaniards are racist. Everyone (they were of several political tendencies) agreed that the youngest generations are (in general) quite tolerant, while the oldest ones are less.

We were remembering how Madrid was 15 years ago, when there were almost no inmigrants here, and talked how normal it is to see blacks (and other ethnias) in London or Paris. The problem, as I said in my previous post, is that while in London and Paris there have been inmigrants for decades and in New York for centuries, in Spain inmigration is very recent. We must get used to this phenomenum. It will get normal when the sons of those who have just come grew. In the meantime we will have to overcome the difficulties and stressess of our society making a special effort to integrate inmigrants.

Again, please excuse my previous post (those who read it unmodified).

Fernando

mr. louis and others,
I think it is very unfair to categorize a whole country under that label. as fernando says, immigration is a recent phenomenon here. when I was growing up (say 10 yrs ago) it was extremely rare to see e non- white on the streets. I have lived in london for several years and have lost count of the number of so called "paki jokes" I've heard (before I am labelled as a racist, I must say that the term "paki" which is used by some to refer to indians, pakistanis etc IS NOT ONE I HAVE COME UP WITH).
Also, please recall US segregation problems in the 60s, when they had different drinking fountains and bus seats according to race.
I don't for one minute think that Americans or English as a whole are racist, but to be fair, please, don't think that about us.
jose