A recent documentary series on British television offered a fascinating picture of bright, rich Asian business leaders spending lots of money, securing important deals and enjoying their success.
It was a profile of entrepreneurial spirit at its best, and in a country where there are few recognisable Asian role models their achievement was a triumph for race relations.
But there is a disturbing and complex contradiction at the heart of race relations in Britain. Some political observers say equal opportunity and anti-racism legislation introduced by the Labour government offers the best chance in decades to eradicate racism at all levels in society, and yet, in the June general election, the far-right British National Party (BNP) gained more votes than ever.
In the northern English cities of Burnley, Oldham, Bradford and Leeds this summer, racial tension between Asian and white communities boiled over. There was no simple explanation for the violence, but some Asian and Muslim community leaders cited growing support for, and provocation by, the BNP, a growing yob culture, poverty within both communities and a lack of racial understanding by police as factors contributing to the unrest.
There are signs that communities are fragmenting along racial, cultural and faith lines. In London, as in the other major urban areas of Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow, there is a fascinating multicultural mix.
But London is also home to Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities that, more often than their white counterparts, live in poor housing, send their children to underfunded schools and struggle to find jobs.
A recent government study discovered more than half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households lived in the most deprived 10 per cent of wards in England.
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has identified a profound mismatch between the ideals of racial integration and equal opportunity and the successes in these areas, and the experience of black and ethnic minority communities of persistent racial abuse and intolerance.
A CRE spokesman, Mr Chris Myant, says: "While you can point to some enormous achievements in breaking down the barriers and say it is a really multicultural Britain, there are segregated communities, where people are living at the back end of society . . . It is a contradiction we can only resolve by more determined work on the equality front."
The CRE says the mismatch is growing because the benchmark of good practice is constantly advancing and has urged politicians not to become complacent about race relations.
This warning was echoed by a report from the Cabinet Office in August which suggested inequalities between white and ethnic minorities would increase over the next 20 years unless steps were taken to reduce segregation in schools and housing, and social policies were refined to target Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.
The anti-racism message is now a message of centre-ground politics. The two Conservative leadership contenders, Mr Iain Duncan Smith and Mr Kenneth Clarke, have distanced themselves from the racism of far-right politics that at times found a home within the party.
Post-Macpherson - the inquiry into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence - Labour has led the drive to incorporate the anti-racism message into every area of the public sector, particularly the police.
But with the asylum issue still bogged down in racist language, and organisations such as the Crown Prosecution Service recently accepting it was institutionally racist, there is still much work to be done in Britain to achieve harmonious race relations.
Tomorrow Lara Marlowe writes on French racism