FWIW: I find the question impossible to answer for a number of reasons, beginning with using the singular America rather than Americans, but even using the plural that’s a lot of people to talk about using just one word about anything, from racism to religious preferences, whether one is a vegan or eats meat, likes to watch sports or can’t watch a sporting event for beer (me).
While I understand that whether one cares for people of other races is of far greater moral significance big picture-wise than whether one prefers vanilla to strawberry ice cream, there are degrees and gradations of racism, from the “not my cup of tea” kind to the more extreme"not in my neighborhood" sort to the ultimate and extreme “lynch 'em” or “deport 'em” variety.
My sense is that racism, however one chooses to define it (whether to include ethnic groups rather than only non-Caucasians), is widespread. As others have mentioned on this thread, and I agree, we are as a species rather “group coded”, and I find what strikes me as the lazy tossing around of words like xenophobia ludicrous, as we are in my opinion as coded to react suspiciously, oftentimes startlingly, to anything foreign, whether it’s mouse in one’s kitchen, a possum living under one’s front porch or a new neighbor or co-worker of a different race or from another culture.
To get on my high horse for a spell: I don’t think that prejudices, racism, the misunderstanding and sometimes the refusal TO UNDERSTAND other kinds of people from oneself is something that we can change to a one size fits all morality and make it stick for all Americans, let alone human beings. Nor do I think that this is desirable.
We are all different as to how we respond to different things, and this includes, needless to say, other people. In my opinion we’d be wiser to be broader and more realistic when we get moralistic about racial matters, stress justice and respect for the rights and beliefs of others, the largeness of the world and, equally important, the largeness of ourselves, as individuals, by which I mean our basic moodiness, our ambivalence, our willingness to grow and change, and in many cases a refusal to do so. This is the human condition. I see no reason why we cannot grow and improve as a society and ultimately a species and retain our individual aversions, quirks, even prejudices regarding other kinds of people, and still, at the end of the day, retain our respect for the rights of all human beings.
End of sermon. To return to the original question: yes, racism is very widespread in our society, and it’s hugely aggravated by confusion, an unwillingness to view ourselves realistically, and stop using words like hate to describe the way some people are ill-disposed to others on account of their racial background. We’re so stuck, so hung up on this issue; and the words we use to describe our problems are, in my humble opinion, themselves a huge part of the problem.