I really don't believe people care too much about colour - culture is more the issue. I put a question to a real bigot - someone who continually banged on about 'blacks' and 'foreigners', and it was this. If your son brought home a beautiful Singapore Airlines girl, would you object? The answer? "No". And yet she would be the same colour as, say, a person from India, so I truly believe prejudice is more about culture than colour. In Shilpa's case, that was simply jealous bullying from trashy people who are not nearly as well educated and certainly not as refined as she is. They couldn't compete so they bullied. Typical women! Simple. It wasn't rascism - it wouldn't have mattered where she came from, the result would have been the same.
Having said that, I really wish people from other cultures would make the effort to integrate more and to be seen to join in the fight against terrorism more. It would certainly help. After all, when bombers strike, it's not only the 'infidel' they're killing. I was driving through east London one day last year and a Muslim organisation was holding an open day, ferrying food into a hall and inviting anyone who wanted to come, to come along to meet them. What a wonderful idea! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to stop and go in - but I wish I had. If more ethnic communities did this sort of thing, I'm sure it would go a long way to enhancing relations between different cultures. The fundamental Muslims scare the hell out of me, but that doesn't mean that all Muslims are fundamentalists. One of my best friends is Muslim - and she absolutely detests the Imams who preach nothing but hatred and death. You can't really blame people for being suspicious and afraid, can you?