It's easy to claim to be tolerant of differences when the population is actually homogeneous, but if a bunch of dissimilar people started showing up in <insert small midwestern town here> you might be surprised how badly the incumbent population reacts.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I've lived in the south my whole life, and still haven't seen a blatant display of racism.
It might be that you can't see what you were born and raised to swim in?
I had one aunt who was born and raised in Wisconsin (not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity and acceptance) who moved to Fayetteville Arkansas. She loved the area, and stayed for about 15 years, but she constantly talked about how shocking the blatant racism was. Same thing with my sister, born and raised in (definitely redneck and racist, but more on the 'down low') far northern Wisconsin. She fell in love with the Richmond/Willliamsburg area of Virginia on a visit, moved there and has been living there more than 10 years. She regularly comments on how appallingly and blatantly racist a lot of the people are.
Note that I myself would happily consider moving to either of these areas from where I currently live, because of some of the great amenities they offer. But racial and cultural tolerance would not be on my list of expectations if I moved to either place. Whereas, the city I currently live in (and don't care for) doesn't have notably blatant racism. Instead, there is nustso religious and political conservatism everywhere, which depresses me.
There's problems everywhere. No good pretending they don't exist, and when you move, prepare yourself to deal with whatever set of problems will be most problematic to your daily life in that location.
ETA for OP: I also am a fan of Tucson (although full disclosure, I haven't lived there in nearly 20 years YIKES, so things might have changed somewhat)