Why so much in-game racism?

[Leifei]

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.

I played FFXI for years. The people that played TaruTaru saw the same potato jokes that Lalas see today from what I saw. Granted people were joking though.