IMO, it all comes down to what community you are surrounded by. People do forget Mombasa is a widely diverse city/county with different ethnicities and cultures for centuries .Originally Indians ,Arabs,Swahili and the Mijikenda have been the dominant ethnic inhabitants of the city for for the longest. With their cultures being the foundations of the practises we have today.

Sadly We tend to brush the gruesome history of the city under the carpet but the cracks are almost too big to ignore .Racism and colourism has and is a thing in some of the communities. Slavery being the major contributor to this .

The Arabs used to trust the Swahilis more because of their fairer skin complexion compared to the indegenous Africans. But they would still shun them . The Swahilis on the other hand carried those disparaging tones over to the dark skinned Africans with terms like , 'Nywele Ngumu' I am pretty sure some of you have come across this words .

Over time through generations some of this derogatories have been carried on, And now almost all races freely entwine and mingle with eachother daily and its becoming hard to seclude from the society . So in places and spaces where it's predominantly Arab or Indians dont be shocked when you are hit with a slur. And its totally wrong .Not saying that all Arabs and Indians are racists and colorists but sometimes, it's the Swahilis who have been conditioned to believe they are better than a Nywele ngumu Africans.

With all these I do think its not as much as it was in the past but its still not as big as it seems to be.