Was bringing up ancestral D&D issues supposed to somehow magically absolve D&D of this specific issue?
It is to illustrate a) there is nothing to "absolve D&D of" and b) if there were, changing the word would not do it. You are contending that it is the word itself that is the problem. Someone who has issues with the concept of identifying groups of people based on hereditary traits is not hung up on the word itself but the concept. Call it People, species, bioform, whatever you still have the same issue and, while I do think people tend to be rather foolish, I don't think they are foolish enough to be fooled by using a euphemism. Look at the above post that was provided as evidence and filled you with such anguish...it wasn't the word "race" that that the person used to reinforce his own racism. It was the concept that some races are on average better at some things than others. No matter how you represent that mechanically (racial bonuses, dark vision, speed, proficiency, immunities, resistances, vulnerabilites, what have you) it will still be the same. And if you don't represent it mechanically, then there is no point. Are you going to still have groups of similar peoples living in their own cities. Are elves and dwarves still going to dislike and distrust eachother but set aside th (edit) those differences when orcs show up? Then you still have the issue of race in your game. If you don't like those things then by all means remove them from your game. Get rid of all humanoids but humans or just say everyone can have whatever outward appearance they want but there is no mechanical or cultural difference.
Therefore the only way to solve this (non)problem is to remove the very concept and I strenuously object to that notion because I _like_ including a variety of races in the game and even having some racial strife. It's a staple of the genre. If you don't, play without them and please leave the rest of us alone. It's like you walked into a bar and are objecting to people smoking. Go to a bar that doesn't allow smoking.
Apples and oranges, really. Though to your question, I'm sure some kids got to play D&D that otherwise wouldn't have because they could say "See, it's not satanic like that movie, it doesn't have demons in it."
And I very very much doubt that. I had a friend around 1985 quit playing for that very reason. He sounded just like you. He agreed that the way we played the game wasn't satanic, but he believed someone could use the game to introduce people to the occult and he couldn't stand to be a part of that. So he dumped all his books in a dumpster (which fortunately my brother retrieved and we kept). While I disagreed with his reasoning, I don't believe he was dumb enough to fall for changing terms...and since the terms devil and demon are back, I gather WotC figured that out.
Your defensiveness is misplaced. No one is turning you into a villain or making you change. A simple word puts some people off the game who would otherwise gladly play it. Do you want more people to play the game? Would it do you any harm to change the word? Then you shouldn't object to the the idea of changing that word - it'd be doing good things, and not hurting anybody.
You are trying to make us change. You want us to stop using the word race to fix a problem that isn't fixed by changing the word. And didn't you say above D&D had to be "absolved" of this issue? If you aren't making us out to be villains you are at the very least treating us like we have committed some sort of sin and I reject that utterly.
Do I want more people to play? Of course and I've introduced scores of people to the game. But not if it means changing the core concepts of the game. If you aren't talking about that then I see no evidence that what you are proposing would do anything other than make an attempt to appease people who are not interested in being appeased.
