the UK doesn't necessarily have much of a moral high ground
I agree. And I also take your point about media training for police officers and people in other walks of life. But for whatever reason, it has become unacceptable in the UK to express negative opinions about race.
I think that on balance that is a good thing. I wish the same could be said about discrimination and casual abuse about women.
It is also arguably unacceptable to express racist opinions in football after the FA's Kick It Out campaign.
Although clubs still defend it if they want to hold on to someone of the calibre of Luis Suarez who called Patrice Evra the Spanish term for 'little n***'.
Actually, WTF? There is no English term for little n'. It's fucking racist.
I believe that if Evans had been convicted of a racially-aggravated assault there would have absolutely no consideration of coming back for him.
But rape? That's okay. That's what lads do on a Saturday night isn't it? It's not rape, is it? Especially when it's footballers who could have their pick of girls, which I believe was one of Evans's excuses 
He's a decent player for the first division (which is the third division in old money) but he's not Wales's Suarez by a long chalk.
Not that I think that the fans or the directors and club officials think racism is bad, but it's just what they have to sign up to these days. It's probably quite baffling and inconvenient for them and they're buggered if they're going to give any more ground to the feminists and the poofs.
I'd like to put the N word in full btw, just like I'd use cunt to describe a term of abuse, but I'd probably get reported for deletion in this topsey-turvey world that is MN and I'd probably be deleted.
What colour is the sky in the world of a majority women's website where people can use cunt as a form of abuse but can't say n*** in context?
I'd like not to be deleted for using the word poof, btw. I hope everyone sees that I used in irony, not abuse.