Has society made us believe that asking questions about our differences, our language, history and culture is racist?

I use to travel to different countries (mainly European) to experience their culture and lifestyle.  I use to travel to London as it is a very diverse city. I remember people use to ask questions about their differences, their cultures and history. We had stereotypical jokes about each other.  Now I feel things have changed drastically, especially in Western countries, people no longer appear proud to embrace their own culture, their histories, their races which has almost become a dirty word and has been changed to ethnicity.  Asking questions about our differences is almost frowned upon, and we get names thrown around like racist just because we ask questions about other peoples history or politics, language and cultures. I fear we are going to lose our individuality, our years of culture, flair, colour and history over to some form of communism. We are being discouraged to think of ourselves as individuals from years and years of so much story to tell, in exchange for a hive mind. What do you think?