Coming second in the human race

[j4]

Horrified to discover that on a newsgroup full of apparently-intelligent people, it's apparently deemed quite okay for people to casually say "All Americans are thick" and "the French are all arrogant" -- and not even in the context of a joke, but apparently just stating facts. And it can't be xenophobic, because everybody says it! It's a national tradition!

Next up: "It's racist to call a black person a racist". Argh.

I didn't expect to have to have these debates with adults. Am I just hopelessly naïve?