I read a recent study that questioned doctors on what sort of treatment they would give a particular person with a particular medical emergency, the doctors were given a picture of this hypothetical patient. In extraordinarily large numbers, doctors would up treating minorities in less agressive ways than they treated whites, correlated with their race. None of these doctors according to the study were admitted racists and the tendencies were all subconcious.
Death threats toward Obama as president went up 300 percent (my recollection, it might have been higher) over any other presdidentf - and they started directly after he was president so it likley had nothing to do with policies he had yet to implement.
There are many indications that ours is a racist society no matter what we like to tell ourselves. That being the case, harping on protecting minorities, knowing that they automaticaly don't get the breaks they should, is still pretty credible.