Why so much in-game racism?

[Enkidoh]

It does seem to be an issue with the FF14 community. i guess the fact that communication is easier than ever before has contributed to it.

FFXI had the same races, but I can't remember ever seeing any jokes because I played a Tarutaru.

You never heard of 'tarupunting'/'taruball' jokes? Or eating taru? People used to shout those out all the time in Jeuno (Although I remember one taru player in Lower Jeuno at the receiving end of one such 'eating taru' joke got their revenge by shouting back "Don't eat more taru, eat more GALKA!". I can't remember how the other person responded to that)...

And then there was the tail pulling taru inevitably did to mithra like me.... (yes I experienced that, out in the middle of nowhere too I might add, some taru player came up, did "pulls Enkidoh's tail and then runs away, laughing." in emote and then disappeared). But it was all in good fun and wasn't deliberately nasty or mean spirited - it was just part of the fun of playing the game.

So such things have naturally continued into FFXI's spirtual successor here in FFXIV. There's no real nastiness associated with it, it's just light-hearted silliness.