Concept creep is the phenomenon whereby harm related words such as 'racist', 'bullying', 'genocide', 'prejudice', etc. are expanded to include a broader range of phenomena than originally intended, thus increasing sensitivity to harm. It's one of the explanations for why so many young people are oversensitive and fragile.

The expansion may occur vertically by including less severe cases than those previously regarded as harmful or horizontally by including other behaviors previously not considered harmful.

These expansions may occasionally come about accidently but more often than not are intentional and with a specific purpose in mind.

Let's consider two examples.

While racists of all stripes do certainly still exist. They are far fewer in number than in days gone by. However, certain people make a very good living promoting racism. Think Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. They have a financial interest in keeping alive the idea that racism is ubiquitous. They, and others like them therefore have labored assiduously to expand the concept of racism to include things such as disparate outcomes for differing races.

Another example is the concept of genocide. This term was once only applicable to events such as the Holocaust, the Armenian slaughter by the Ottoman Empire (Muslims) and that of the Kulaks by the Soviets.

It has over the last several decades been expanded to include the colonialism of the west and especially that of Britain. This is an unvarnished effort, primarily on the part of some self-loathing western intellectuals, to prey upon the guilt of white Europeans by painting them as the bad actors in any interactions with other cultures.