>I believe that we are all racist (though I am sure that there are many of you who will deny this to the death) but some of us are simply more tolerant or accepting than others.<
'Brick, I think this relates to the point (only about racism, not sexism) that I was trying to get at in my first post on this thread.
It's very easy to change our intellectual, uninvolved opinions on a subject and decide what we think.
It's much harder (close to impossible) to change our attitudes and what, in our deepest subconscious, we feel.
Unfortunately actions are more often driven by feeling than by thinking. In this context, speaking and choice of words is an action. 'PC-ness' is good in that it might encourage us to think about some of those unconscious attitude and feeling-driven choices. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily encourage us to do that especially once it has been taken to extremes that enable us just to mock it rather than think about why anyone cared in the first place.
It's all part of that battle between what we think we 'ought' to be and what we actually are!