Tightfit,
I lived in Wiltshire for a year and was absolutely amazed at the descriptive terms to identify people: The Asian at the Curry Stand; the Turk at the Kebab shop, the Paki who sells the newspapers, the black bloke who works at Sainsbury's, Irish Bog Trotters, etc. I think that it happens everywhere. However, I am sure that the police officer found it very helpful when you happened to mention the robbers color. "The bloke in the green jumper" isn't much of a lead.
We need to be careful not to confuse description, descrimination, intolerence, and bigotry. I don't like brussel sprouts and I discriminate against them, in fact, I can't tolerate them. However, when I refer to them as little green cabbages, that doesn't mean that I don't like little things, green things, or cabbage.
Skin color, ethnicity, cock size, religon, etc are all part of who people are and using those terms to describe them to someone else is a perfectly normal thing.
Being hateful of anyone for any reason is wrong.