A recent post from Ampersand on the subject of racism:
“When I step on someone’s foot, I don’t complain that their toes are overly sensitive, nor do I make elaborate explanations of how I came to step on their foot (“you have to understand, where I meant to put my foot was…”). I apologize and move on. Most of the time, inadvertent racism (homophobia, sexism, etc) should be dealt with the same way.”