Fair point about institutional racism. But even institutional racism, as it is no longer codified in law, is merely a product of our collective prejudices. For example, there was a study that showed that identical resumes--one having a black sounding name and one white sounding--were far more likely to garner a callback for the "white" applicant (in quotes, because there were no actual applicants). I doubt that those managers said to themselves "I don't want a black guy working for me". My guess is that it was subconscious. There is further evidence to support this, as other studies have shown that we (I mean everyone, not just whites) subconsciously associate things that are white (culturally white, not white color) with positivity and things that are black with negativity. As JacobVirgil said in his response, we need to be aware of our prejudices before we can confront them.

I strongly disagree that words don't matter. There is a reason oliticians have dedicated speech writers, and advertisers employ trained copy writers. Words, even their etymology, influence our thinking on everything. Language defines the way we interact with one another so often (for instance right now, where we don't have the luxury of inflection or body language). Being precise and conceptually accurate are paramount to understanding, IMO.