When you change the meaning of racism to actually mean only institutional racism, the behavior that the old meaning represented suddenly becomes much more acceptable. In my opinion this shows a lack of moral clarity on the part of the people who do this, either willingly or not, since it shows that the reason they were opposed to racism was only because of the social prohibition to whatever was thought to be racist, not to the act of racial prejudice itself.
Excellent point. Racism and sexism are big ideas that operate on more than one level. Thanks for the reminder that I was thinking about it a narrow way.