Getting racially aware

Okay, so the vast majority of Hungarians aren't as racist as this guy, and I know that every country has a little xenophobia, but there's certainly a marked dislike of certain groups here. Namely, the Roma people ("gypsies"), Jews, Indians, and black Africans.

I was going for coffee with this one girl, who I'd met on the train on the way back from the airport on Sunday. She seemed nice, highlighted by the fact she'd agreed to have coffee with a perfect stranger. We started making the usual conversational rounds: back stories, siblings, jobs...

Somehow - and I confess I possibly brought us round to the subject a few times - we got onto the subject of these different racial groups.

Firstly she told me that, during her year in London, she didn't like the Indians, because they didn't integrate themselves, just making their own communities there, unlike the Eastern Europeans. I'm sure there are plenty of Brits who think Eastern Europeans have done just that, with Polish shops and delicatessens, and bars and estate agents. I corrected her as well, because most Indian families I know in the UK are as English as Terry & June, and she possibly meant Bangladeshi or Pakistani groups, which I think sometimes do still form mini-communities.

Secondly she mentioned that age old notion of a Jewish conspiracy, whereby there was some sort of agreement where they would work to get their own into work organisations they were in. I argued that the problem with this thinking is that there's always a certain nepotism with jobs, and that traditional Jews hold very much to their ties, but to put a slant on it that makes it so subterfuge is dangerously like butting heads.

Lastly, when she mentioned "gypsies" there was an almost pantomime aside, as if to say, 'those people'.

Eastern Europe has always been a melting pot of peoples, but tough conditions have made it more like a battle for resources, rather than a cosmopolitan dream. The Communist era continued to exaggerate notions of 'the other' and exacerbate racial tensions. It's going to take time for things to change, but at the moment, even otherwise very nice people can still spout racial obscenities.

I'm a foreigner in a strange land. What can I do when I'm trying to make nice with the locals?

She did give me details of a second-hand English bookshop...