While there have been attempts by some unionist politicians to dispute links between some loyalists and racism, the evidence which has emerged in a range of areas over recent years has been overwhelming.
Much of the anti-migrant rhetoric in particular has been fuelled by social media claims which are either misleading or entirely untrue, and there are strong indications that ordinary citizens have increasingly recognised the scale of the misrepresentations which have been made.
Although no section of the community has a monopoly on racist attitudes, it is obviously that most of the episodes of intimidation and even direct violence which have taken place since the summer of last year were in loyalist districts.
Vulnerable individuals have regularly been targeted on the basis of false allegations that floods of newcomers had been taking over neighbourhoods and handed houses, jobs and benefits which should have gone elsewhere.
Official statistics have instead confirmed that the total of asylum seekers in the north is at a low level and significantly behind the latest available figures for England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
It is essential that anyone who commits crimes, regardless of their background, is firmly dealt with by the courts, but the records again show that the vast majority of offences in this jurisdiction are not connected to migrants.
Detailed research has also established that almost half of those arrested over the disturbances linked to racism which broke out in Belfast last summer had previously been reported to police for domestic abuse.
It is all too easy to blame the problems in any society on the most recent arrivals, but it has still become clear that those behind street agitation over migrants are receiving very little support from the wider public.
The announcement that one weekly protest outside a hotel in Newtownabbey which has been used to provide accommodation for people seeking refugee status has finally been abandoned was a telling moment.
Only a handful of individuals were gathering on the road beside the building, and the organisers were forced to acknowledge that residents were disinterested in what amounted to a failed publicity stunt.
It will also have been noted that a separate demonstration staged by those opposed to the use of bilingual signage at a Belfast leisure centre last Friday attracted a turn-out which was only just into double figures.
All the indications are that these issues will not be progressed in any serious way through interventions by angry voices on digital platforms, and instead need to be primarily considered by council and Assembly representatives who have a firm democratic mandate for their decisions.
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