Racism in Iceland?

There have been many debates on Iceland being a racist country and how some of it may have been announced during the Cold War. “In 1951 U.S.-Icelandic Defense Agreement paved the way for a permanent U.S. military presence at the Keflavik base in Iceland, an outpost that played a crucial role in U.S. strategy during the Cold War” ( Marquette Warrior: Racial Purity in Iceland). This article basically states that black U.S. troops are not allowed on the Iceland base. They argue that it is not because they are racist but are trying to protect their women and to preserve a homogeneous “national body”.
This is not the only racist act that Iceland has made. Iceland has a “God-like” figure that is called Fjallkonan or in English, the Lady of the Mountain. Her skin color is also, white. An editor of an Iceland magazine decided to pose a black model of Fjallkonan and no one would buy him. This just shows one more example of Iceland being a racist country.
Iceland today is still not tolerant of African American people. They are so closed off from every other race but their own and that issue has caused many of conflicts. Helping Iceland even when they did not agree to change their racial views was a horrible mistake of us to make. It showed our African Americans that we did not care if they were treated unequally. Of course some say that we did not really have a choice in the matter, if we wanted to keep a military base in Iceland. That may be true and the U.S. did fight for their rights but while it was being considered, we acted like nothing was wrong and kept going along with our defense agreement.
Another source speaks from personal experience in his blog of racism in Iceland. He says that while he was meeting with someone the secretary referred to him as “the foreigner”. He explains how that upset him and how he truly saw how blocked off from other races the country was.
One could argue and say that almost every country has gone through their racist times but haven’t most countries matured and realized that everyone is equal? It is time that Iceland realizes that! Although they have shown many signs of equality, most citizens are still judging people on the color of their skin. This is completely unjust and cruel and needs to be stopped. To be cruel to someone by their appearance in just completely wrong and kept brilliant soldiers from being able to stay at one of our bases in the Cold War. Iceland needs to grow up and apologize for the hurt that they caused African Americans, Asians, etc. during the Cold war era because many people remember it and think that it was completely wrong. You can type racism in Iceland and it will pull up so many accounts. It is disturbing how evil they can be toward difference. I am sure that they can pull through sooner or later, hopefully sooner.