The Top 12 Most Racist Countries in the World

The American Dream and the Land of the Free turn out to be oxymorons as the United States, despite its multicultural make-up, is also one of the most racist countries in the world. Police in particular are renowned for their discrimination, killing Black people with little repercussions. On the border with Mexico, security forces have also murdered hundreds of Mexican migrants and refugees with impunity. Racial discrimination in the U.S. has become a major issue and national embarrassment. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, over 700 hate groups are currently active in the United States, including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. The most recent FBI report suggests over 7,000 people were impacted by hate crimes nationwide in 2013. The agency says the majority of reported hate crimes were motivated by race.

Saudi Arabia is one of the richest countries in the world, but it is also one of the most racist. Saudi Arabia has been known to exploit laborers from developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, among others. These laborers are treated terribly, as they are often forced to live in sub-human conditions. Saudis are also highly racist toward poorer Arab countries. Many Syrians have fled violence in their country and have ended up in Saudi Arabia only to face racial discrimination there.

This is another country that despite having a vibrant diversity of people from different countries, racism is still too common. Experts believe many Britons suffer a superiority complex given that at one point in history, they dominated almost the entire world. Within Britain, there are verbal attacks on people from south Asia, against Irish people, and more recently, mostly due to government discourse and the media, against Muslim people. Institutionalized racism against darker skinned people is an issue, as is state-sponsored anti-immigrant sentiment. According to the Home Office, 44,480 hate crimes were reported in 2013-2014, a 5 percent increase over the previous year. Over 80 percent of these crimes were related to race.

Japanese laws and regulations have been put in place to deal with racism and discrimination, however the government practices what is called “positive discrimination,” while displaying low tolerance for refugees and people from other countries. Japan also makes efforts to prevent the entrance of Muslims, as some Japanese people believe Islam is not compatible with their culture. In 2005, a United Nations special rapporteur on racism warned the Japanese government wasn't doing enough to respond to a growing tide of xenophobia. Three years later, the U.N. released a report that found Okinawans and the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido were most affected by racism in Japan, followed by Chinese and Korean migrants.

A sector of Germany's population is extremely racist, while other Germans have organized to defend migrant and refugee rights, among others. However, over half a century after Adolf Hitler's effort to eliminate all “impure races” from the country, ordering the genocide of millions of Jewish people, many Germans still believe in white supremacy. The Neo-Nazis still exist today and openly talk about anti-Semitic ideas. In 2011, a study by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research found 47.1 percent of Germans believe there are too many foreigners in the country. Nearly 30 percent agreed foreigners should be removed from Germany if jobs became scarce.

Israel's decades-long war against Palestinians - murdering them, locking them up, bombing their houses and hospitals into rubble, and generally ensuring they live in a jail-like environment, makes it almost unnecessary to explain further why this country is on the list of most racist countries. Israel has a long history of also committing serious crimes against Israeli Arabs. Between March 2014 and February 2015, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed nine “racially discriminatory” laws, according to a report by the Coalition Against Racism in Israel. The same report recorded 66 cases of alleged racial discrimination committed by private citizens. The overwhelming majority of cases cited in the report allegedly targeted Arab Israelis, followed by Ethiopians.

Despite the historic and monumental struggle of Nelson Mandela against Apartheid, this African country has not been able to remove itself from this infamous list. Daily discrimination against the Black majority continues, with lighter skinned people continuing to live apart in wealthy areas, hiring darker skinned people as domestic workers. In 2012, the South African reconciliation barometer survey found 43.5 percent of South Africans rarely or never interact with people of a different race. The same survey found less than one in five South Africans regularly socialize with people of other races.

Despite being a country of migrants, racism is strong among sectors of the population. Police discriminate against Aboriginal people, and some Australians perpetuate the hatred against Muslims, recent migrants, refugees, and Aboriginals, that they hear from their politicians and the media. The Australian government locks up refugees that arrive in the country on boats, seeing many commit suicide or psychologically harmed by years in prison. In 2009, a peak in hate crimes was registered, with many Aboriginals targeted and harassed. Almost 100 cases were filed.

The Rwanda genocide of 1994, when over 800,000 people were brutally slaughtered out of racial discrimination, is probably one of the worst acts of its kind in recent history. It was a violent time when two ethnic races, Tutsis and Hutus, were at loggerheads. Tensions remain high between the two peoples today.

Some Russians are racist toward the people whom they feel are not ethnically and truly Russians. Apart from that, some of them are racist towards Africans, Asians, and Chinese people, among others. The Russian government, along with the U.N., has tried to put a stop to hate crimes, but they continue to occur not only in remote areas of the country, but in the big cities as well.

Pakistan is an Muslim majority country, but even so many conflicts flare between Shiites and Sunnis. Both groups or sects have perpetrated crimes against each other out of hatred. Some Pakistanis hold feelings of hatred towards their Indian neighbor.

White supremacist ideology is unfortunately common in India, where lighter skin is glorified by the movie and advertising industries, among others. There is also some discrimination between different regions of the country.