Yeah I suppose trying to open up lines of mature conversation is the best aproach in the beginning, it's easy to let things escalate pretty quickly when the interactions are as impersonal as a tweet and miscommunications definitely happen more easily. Also, I suppose I have relatively little experience dealing specifically with racism being directed against me personally, so I have not explored how I would deal with it much.
I see your point about the catosphere. I guess I haven't owned one recently enough to have engaged in any online community of feline enthusiasts, and we were lucky to have had a very healthy cat in my youth.
I admit I'm pretty divided on the whole concept of "pets". I just spent a while in India where there were many free dogs, though I didn't see as many cats around I'm sure they were there... It seemed that they (the ones that survived anyway) were much healthier, smarter and even more well behaved in many ways than most pet dogs in the US despite living off of handouts and trash. They seem to have a really interesting relationship with other life forms there. More of a live and let live (or die) approach.