There's been a lot of hoopla about this topic - and I find most of the discussion incredibly frustrating and off topic. I may not be right but I think the problem is more complex than it used to be and lots of people who should know better seem no to so . . . this is my attempt to frame the discussion differently.
I don't care what's in your heart. If you say something that is racist or maybe forward an email that is racist, I don't care if you're pure of heart and have black friends. It's about what you did, not who you are.
So when Marilyn Davenport forwarded an email portraying our African-American president as a monkey, it was offensive. That she doesn't consider herself a racist is cute but irrelevant.
Historically, African-Americans have been portrayed in incredibly offensive ways - images of black people as various animals, including chimps, were stock in trade of the vast collection of racist art and advertising up until the 1960s. In light of that heritage, it's not a double standard to react strongly to such images of African-Americans while treating as unremarkable similar images of white people - history matters. When Marilyn Davenport - an elected official in the Republican party, mind you - sends out an image of our African-American president as a chimp, it is an image loaded with racist overtones and one that a culturally aware person should not be sending out. That she is so tone deaf that she doesn't get that is a problem. She's in her seventies and is old enough to know first hand why such images are offensive to African-Americans. Maybe she knows and doesn't care. Maybe she really doesn't know (which I find unlikely since she defended herself by saying she only sent the email to people who wouldn't be offended). But what she thinks or feels does not matter.
It's not what's in her heart that matters, it what she did. And what she did is offensive.
Let's get that part right. She owes an apology for employing long-standing, racially offensively, well-known racist imagery. Some non-self-exculpating, lame ass "I'm not so very sorry I did, I am so sorry all you people were offended when I called you monkeys" excuse would be nice. There's a history and there's a reason her email was offensive. The conversation is and needs to be: you sent this offensive thing out and why it's offensive matters and that's the issue.