A Touchy Subject... Still

This is a story I was told by my girlfriend tonight as she got home from work...

Basically, whilst in work, two black (I'm not sure if that's the PC term or not so forgive me) girls asked her whether they sold a certain product in the store. As she essentially only works on 'her' aisle, there are certain products she is less clued up about than her specialist products. Hence when they asked she answered I don't think we sell x product sorry. Anyhow, a few minutes later one of the girls came back to her friend who was standing nearby with the said product and said 'they do sell x, look' to which her friend replied 'what the f*ck?! Why the f* ck did she tell us they didn't?! I'm f*ckin saying something to her!'

Her friend, sensing tension, told her to leave it as it was an honest mistake.

'But what the f*ck? Is it because we're black?' was her answer.

Seriously, in a week were racial comments have been in the news, why are we still at the stage where you can't even answer a question without someone being offended? Obviously racism is wrong and I'd never condone it but come on, some if the cases you hear are ridiculous. If we truly want an end to such problems, people need to be a little more open minded, a little more open and not as defensive. I hate this 'race' thing anyway, if i have a white cat and a black one, I don't class them as black and white, just cats. Maybe that comparison isn't fair... Or maybe it is, why is it such a grey area? All I know is that when a girl comes home from work unsettled and afraid they've offended someone for answering a question in a non threatening genuine manner then that tells me we're still too uptight about certain issues than we need to be. When are we going to try and move on and make racism a topic of yesteryear?