The silence surrounding the Duchess of Sussex’s treatment by the press has become a roar. More than 70 female MPs signed a letter this week in “solidarity” with Meghan after she spoke about her treatment by sections of the media. The letter outlined attempts “to cast aspersions” on her character. It also attempted to address the nature of these attacks: “We are calling out what can only be described as outdated, colonial undertones to some of these stories,” it read.

However, this treatment can be described as only one thing: racist. Not saying so explicitly is part of a growing trend – the word “racist” is now dodged with more fervour than racial slurs themselves.

At one point, there was concern that “racist” was being used willy-nilly; now, it feels as if those in power are thumbing through a thesaurus with kid gloves, searching hastily for synonyms. The phrasing has become almost comically creative: take “racially charged,” “racially loaded,” “racially divisive” and “racially tinged”, as if bigotry is administered in doses with a pipette. “Homophobically tinged” and “sexistly charged” sound equally ludicrous, but I am yet to see them used in lieu of the real terms.

When Trump tweeted that some of the people of colour in Congress should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary at the time, resolved not to “use the R-word” (his censoring of it, as if it were akin to the N-word, says it all). But who will resolve to use it? And if Trump’s tweets didn’t call for it, what occasion does?

Many journalists are grappling with editorial guidelines that are making their jobs more difficult. Look at the censuring of the BBC presenter Naga Munchetty, after she said, in relation to Trump’s comment, that every time she had been told to “go back to where [she] came from, that was embedded in racism”. Attempts at impartiality lead to inaccuracy – when the Republican congressman Steve King asked why the terms “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” were offensive, NBC News originally told its staff to “be careful to avoid characterising [King’s] remarks as racist.”

Almost no behaviour seems to merit the descriptor, bar donning a Ku Klux Klan costume (except at Halloween, of course, when its white supremacist roots are apparently neutralised by “banter”) and using the N-word (but not in song lyrics, of course, when its white supremacist roots are apparently neutralised by the beat).

More and more, it feels as if racism is being defined by those least likely to experience it – namely when they themselves are targeted. Apparently, calling rightwing, red-faced, middle-aged white men “gammon” is racist, yet golliwogs, according to 63% of Britons in a survey, are not racist.

As we tiptoe around the semantics and the word “racism” morphs into hate speech, hate crimes continue to soar. Unless something changes, this cycle will continue until “racially tinged” becomes equally as offensive and we replace it with another useless euphemism to protect the feelings of perpetrators.

•Yomi Adegoke is a Guardian columnist