In context of said Stephen Fry quote I mentioned...Then you said you had never been offended by anything in your life.
You do realize you also have the power to not let things bother you, right? It's like the recent example of Juwan Howard, the coach of Michigan college basketball, letting the other coach's timeout (Juwan was literally upset that the coach called a timeout) and got mad enough to slap him and now he's suspended for the season. That example has nothing to do with racism obviously, but a lot of people have far too little mental willpower and let such little things majorly affect them. Or people getting "offended" by Dave Chappelle's standup; you can, you know, not watch his specials then. And if someone calls you a racial slur and you see other people giving that guy the look that that's not cool or telling them to "fuck off", you know society has deemed that guy as being pathetic so why are you gonna get offended? You're always going to have some people like that no matter what just like some people think the earth is flat. And, of course, people can use racially charged words without being racist or intending to be hurtful at all like saying I got the itis after a big meal. Stephen Fry's quote is mainly about political correctness.Yet those words would still be racist and perceived as racist, especially by those who those words are meant discriminate against. And I know this might sound like an after school special, but I guess it's necessary to say; Words have impact. Bullying isn't just physically beating someone up. The word 'fatty' is pretty harmless on its own, but if you're called that day in and day out, at school or at work, it's going to have an impact on you. But then I guess everyone calling you that could just say 'Hey, come on, I don't mean that as an insult, it's cuz I like you' and it wouldn't matter?
What if someone put a burning cross on the lawn of a black family? Is that actual racist harm being done, or is it just some burning timber and the family in question really shouldn't be offended by it? What is actual racist harm in your mind; physical violence that is racially motivated? By your reasoning shouldn't the racial motivation not mean anything to the victim, only the beating? If you feel that there is no such thing as offending, then racism by these standards doesn't exist at all, since all it would entail is one group of people being perceived as lesser by another, and why would the former group care and have a less content day then, right?
I said in a post above that verbal abuse is a thing, thus I'm not implying that words have no impact. You shouldn't be on anyone's property without permission and I'm sure setting fire to anything on someone's property is a crime. There's tons of different kinds of racial harm like physical violence obviously, not being able to get a loan or a job, not allowed to eat at a restaurant, being pulled over for no reason by the cops, state of school funding, etc. Something like the overreaction of that Justine Sacco tweet that got her fired ~10 years ago is the kinda stuff I'm talking about, not burning crosses on black people's lawns.