break-in(?)

@ VanUden - fine. I think that you can slowly erode racism by subtley changing the political environment. People are sheep. There's more to the war against prejudice than simply being reactive. I thought you'd be acutely aware of the power of words, with your background.

Yes I agree that words are massively important as is language. I do find political correctness just as depressing as racism though (censorship falls into this for me as well). And I agree that most people don't like thinking for themselves too much and will regurgitate whatever is convenient and has been programmed into them at some point.

As a partial aside I asked a close friend what she thinks about Golliwog dolls as a black woman. Her response was simply "well, they're just dolls aren't they". I thought that was pretty healthy and can't help feeling that actually a lot of the inherent angst in what's racist and what's not is of more interest to the hand-wringing white middle classes who are the modern day equivalent of mediaeval hair-shirt wearers.