I'm not sure about the actual prevalence of racism, but one thing I can tell you is that living in a less diverse place makes it real easy for people to be blissfully unaware of their own racism, whereas actually interacting with people of other races forces them to confront it about themselves.

I've seen plenty of people here on Lemmy from lily-white states like Minnesota or Montana dunking on the South in the most bigoted way while simultaneously being holier-than-thou about it.