What the wankers don't realize is, if you apologize and you try to change, people are generally totally forgiving. Seriously! And even if they're not forgiving, they don't hate you forever for it. So long as you try.

Plus, I think the key is whether you're caring about you not screwing up, or just caring about not being called on it. Some people don't care whether they hurt people's feelings so long as the hurt people don't say anything. I think that's pretty much behind the "You're being oversensitive!" Where good people don't care if the hurt party is oversensitive, bad racist douches just want some way to invalidate their feelings to protect themselves.