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Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising.
Hang on, those are 2 very different things. Saying that you had a lapse of judgement can be part of an apology; essentially, "sorry I made a mistake". Trying to explain why something "isn't racist" is a hiding to nowhere, but saying that there was no racist intent behind something is a perfectly valid thing to say.
It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.
Part of the problem here is people not being able to move forward with any kind of discussion unless the other person admits that they were a dick. Loads of people seem to feel that ending a discussion is preferable to doing the harder thing of tolerating the fact that the other person really feels that they haven't done anything wrong and still talking to them.
ffm-
If someone is saying to you that they feel hurt by your actions, especially if it is a person of colour telling a white, middle class male that what they said was racist, it would take a monumental amount of blind privilege to try to discuss anything other than "fuck, you're right, sorry".
saying that there was no racist intent behind something is a perfectly valid thing to say.
Still not an apology.
stevo_com
And there is often room to do just that. It's more that in this case, and the referenced Danny Baker scenario, they didn't. Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising. It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.