Racist rant in the 70's- has he changed?

There are only three possibilities here, I think. The first is that he just fell in with the wrong people for a time and got twitchy and paranoid about "foreigners" because of an influence of the crowd he was with.

The second is that he has always had this jingoistic/xenophobic attitude.

The third is that he briefly entertained this idea or had heard it recently (at the time) and then got HIIIIIIGGGH and/or drunk before the rant.

In the case of the first, he's probably "cured" by now. I can't see Clapton being a real, committed racist given his relationship with the blues and all the blues musicians he hangs with. That doesn't mean he doesn't have racist or xenophobic attitudes, but if he does, they are likely small and likely have become smaller over the years given his genre of choice.

In the second case, he's still a racist schmuck.

In the third case, he probably never was and just vomited up some kind of paranoid rambling while stoned.

Best guess? At the time he probably saw some numbers or stats linking immigrants to crime, or talking about how new waves of immigrants were rejecting British culture and values, and that troubled him and he leaped to a stupid, illogical conclusion (that all immigrants are out to get "real" Brits) and he ranted about it. He was probably a little drunk or high and that pulled it out of him and made him go overboard.

Being a '60s counterculture icon and blues musician, I think it unlikely that any racism in the man is super-virulent.

Still, that rant was uncomfortable and wrong, and it's a pretty big blot on his moral copybook.

Eric Clapton has always been a steaming pile of shit. But I doubt he's a true racist.

Well, these days, you can be 'racist' or a white supremacist for buying white bread over brown bread. So, what is 'racism'?

Go look at crime rates for different areas of any city in the US and you'll find that the areas with a higher concentration of blacks will also have a higher crime rate. Go read the old "Things we must do" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. If you can't find it below is a snippet that give you the main takeaway....

"Let us be honest with ourselves, and say that we, our standards have lagged behind at many points. Negroes constitute ten percent of the population of New York City, and yet they commit thirty-five percent of the crime. St. Louis, Missouri: the Negroes constitute twenty-six percent of the population, and yet seventy-six percent of the persons on the list for aid to dependent children are Negroes. We have eight times more illegitimacy than white persons. We’ve got to face all of these things. We must work to improve these standards. We must sit down quietly by the wayside, and ask ourselves: “Where can we improve?” What are the things that white people are saying about us? They say that we want integration because we want to marry white people. Well, we know that is a falsehood. (That’s right) We know that. We don’t have to worry about that. (All right) Then on the other hand, they say some other things about us, and maybe there is some truth in them. Maybe we could be more sanitary; maybe we could be a little more clean. You may not have enough money to take a weekend trip to Paris, France, and buy all of the fascinating and enticing perfumes. You may not be able to do that, but you are not so poor that you cannot buy a five cents bar of soap (Yeah) so that you can wash before [word inaudible]. [applause]