you right they’re not meaningless.
In the hands of the right demagogue they can be powerful tools for creating and extending stimgatisation and division - and undermining society and weakening the grown-up methods of resolving social stresses.

Daryl Davis arguably did try to get along with the kkk.
There might not be many like him and it might be a drop in the ocean, but at least it isn’t no-one who wants to try to do the difficult thing.