In addition, I'm often super surprised at these comments. The US is many orders of magnitude less accepting of racism than Europe. Europeans on the whole speak freely of their negative opinions of Muslims and gypsies. In the US, any comment mentioning race carries immediately with it a negative connotation. This is exactly why it is the breadstuff of comedians. There is no humor in something that is simply accepted as "truth" as much of European racism is.
I hate speaking anecdotally, but just as a credit to my experience with racism in Europe as an Asian-American, my time there was filled with experiences ranging from ignorance to aggressive defensiveness. Most of this can be explained away as just inexperience due to Europe's immense racial homogeneity. Often they would treat me as a fob which was an acceptable assumption. But this just goes to show how behind Europe is in the racial conversation (they don't even have racial experiences!)