Racism Is Becoming Less of a Concern for Most S. Africans ; the UN World Conference on Racism Opens Today in the Nation It Once Censured

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As 6,000 delegates and 14 heads of state converge in this muggy coastal city to talk about racism, there is a particular irony. It's the first time the UN-sponsored World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance will make its keynote something other than South Africa's government.

This is a country that essentially defined racism. For nearly 50 years, the white-minority government outlawed black-rights movements and interracial marriage, enforced segregation in all sectors, and perpetuated a system in which whites controlled virtually all commercial land and industry. The past two conferences, in 1978 and 1983, …