If it is a faux-pas, an immediate excuss is the solution. At least for mature people. There is no explicit racism involved in the CEO example, as long as you treated both persons decently and politely and only misjudged the ranks.

The sex offender thing looks a lot like a straw man argument, so. When I think about racists, yes KK Nazis and so on come to mind. But more often I think about the daily, systematic racism white folks show towars people of colour, migrants, other religions. More often than not accompanied by discriminating women and the LGBTQ community.