This is tragically true, and sadly was brought on by the progressive left.

There used to be an incredibly strong stigma attached to being "racist", but also a high bar to reach before the label would apply (which is why the stigma was so strong).

For instance, the stigma of being a "murderer" is extremely strong because it means you've killed someone in an unjustified way.

But the progressive left got the idea to use the power of the word to achieve social justice (probably explicitly--the changing usage was pioneered by people who were were connected to Critical Discourse Analysis, which is all about understanding the power of words and phrasings). Why get involved with messy arguments when you can just use a term with such emotional potency that you win simply by speaking?

Unfortunately, as always happens, people adjusted. If thinking people of some race are subhuman scum is "racist", but so is failing to be a sufficiently energized activist at dismantling structural factors that are associated with racial disparity, the word gets diluted.

For instance, if you say something unkind to someone and then you're also called a "murderer", people will at first have the reflexive emotional reaction of horror associated with the word (but not the situation), but eventually the horror associated with the word will fade and will match the new usage.

Even when applied to people who unjustifiedly kill others.

The pushback is, of course, an overshoot, because who wants to receive intense stigma for their horrible antisocial behavior. "I'm not a murderer; I just killed that bastard who slept with my girlfriend."

And thus it is with racism. The stigma that protected us from intense personal racial bigotry is largely gone, and that racism which once was hidden and fading is now allowed to sprout and come roaring back. We lost our sharpest weapon to deal with that horrid threat since we were busy using it to chop vegetables.

It's not that we don't need vegetables. They're essential for good health, and we want a good healthy society. But we should have used a different tool. "Racist" was sharp and keen, and we should have saved it for the most urgent and deadly situations. The important but less dire cases could easily have been cut up with "structural racial disparity" and "institutional perpetuation of racial bigotry" and so on.

It will probably take a generation or two to undo the damage, if we manage to turn things around again. It's dreadfully sad. We had this one, but we took the pressure off far too soon, and we're bleeding again.