Marmaduchess What rubbish. For a start the police are recording an increase in reported hate crimes, it isn't just that they are being reported in the Press. I can assure you that I have personally witnessed the nastiness experienced by friends and colleagues as well as seeing some nasty little postcards put up in the area, where there have never been any in the past.
It may be alright to tease somebody you know well for all sorts of things like hair colour, wearing glasses, as well as ethnicity, if you know them very well and it is something that is acknowledged between you to be acceptable and a source of humour, and that means it is a two way street, they have every right to take the piss out of you too. It is not being overly courteous and polite to never say these things to strangers EVER. My DD at the age of 11 had two grown men shout out to her in the street "Is the bush the same as the tree ginger" was that the sort of humour you think is acceptable and normal, or even funny?
Of course if a person's ethnicity is actually a target of institutional racism over a long period of time then you should be even more sensitive in what you say. My daughter's friends have actually commented that nobody would dare continually referring to their hair and skin in the way they did to my daughter's, that's a good thing isn't it? That they felt safe from such nastiness. It is not OK to make derogatory comments that affect people's confidence, at all. It really is about respect and plain common emotional intelligence.
I would have thought it was a traditional British value passed down by generations of mothers "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all".