Political correctness....

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People don't usually dig in and become hostile until it emerges as a pattern with the perpetrator doubling-down and refusing to apologize or consider why their actions caused offence.

If I step on your foot and you call me out for it you're not being a sissy and if I dismiss your concerns as being a sissy I'm being a dick, not you.

That's a good point there, but is it worth firing someone over or charging a hate speech crime to someone over, compared to just telling the person off and leaving it at that?

How often does it actually approach either of those outcomes? You might hear of the occasional extreme case in the news but that doesn't mean those cases are representative of the norm. Remember, dog bites man isn't news. Man bites dog, now that's a story.

It may not be cool to be middle of the road on PC, but thats what I am.

Some PC is needed, and some PC is overreach, and even a bit hysterical.

I always felt that the band "Lady Antebellum" needed a name change.

But IMHO the Dixie Chicks did NOT need to drop the "Dixie" from their name.

A name that includes the word "antebellum" glorifies the pre Civil War South, and its old mansions built on slave plantations.

The word "Dixie" just means the south as a region (no particular era). In fact "Dixieland" is what theyve always called early Black jazz music from New Orleans. So its not a racist term.

I don't think that dixie should be considered offensive, since it just refers to a geographical region.

Agreed, Dixie chicks were pretty woke so earned the right to keep the name.

Lady Antebellum was a horrible choice of name. The band must have really been quite stupid/ignorant and/or knew they weren't going to have a black fan base.

However sometimes its better to be careful and learn not to say things that might unnecessarily aggravate some.
This was quoted from an above post.

Learn not to say things that aggravate people. WHAT ? Am a Aspie , supposable a HFA ,but can’t help without thinking , if I get comfortable , my mouth goes into no thought mode and just blurts out whatever .
Cause my autistic mind just does not think in politically correct terms . Just makes observations , helpful ones, I like to think . Before I know it something NON politically correct or , too overt pops out .
Sometimes it just feels hopeless .

The combination of a lot of autistic people having problems with change and the deliberate successful attempts to change definitions and what is acceptable spells big trouble for autistic people.

Thank you ASPartOfMe...... your insight is appreciated.

I also agree that political correctness has gone out of hand. Whenever I say autistic person, another person will tell me, "You mean person with autism."

I think it all started in the 90s. One time when I was working at the factory, I said that everybody should be speaking and writing English during their work hours. The guy who came to ask us about our rights called me a racist. I kept saying to all my coworkers that I was not a racist until the factory closed down in 1999.

Why is it your concern what language someone is speaking in? If you are not part of their conversation, why does it matter?

Plenty of people at my work speak another language and I don't tell my co worker to speak English when she is on the phone talking to her daughter or someone who speaks her home language.

Really? PC pertains to very minor corrections in speech to not inflame, vilify or demean other people. How is this problematic for autistic people to learn. We don't need to crucify autistic people for saying something innapropriate in the same way I would give some license to somebody with Tourettes syndrome not being in control of swearing like a sailor.

Because of the euphemism treadmill. How many different words have we all been told over the years were the "correct" way to refer to ethnic minorities or disabled people? Just as soon as people eventually accept a new word as being the one singlular non-offensive way to refer to a person, suddenly somebody or some group comes along and stamps a big red "RACIST" stamp on it and campaigns for a new word to be used instead.

It doesn't actually solve racism or ableism or whatever (and often the "bad" words are used without malice anyway), it just makes it more likely that people who aren't trying to be racist get called racist even though they had no ill intent and may have been actively trying to not sound racist. The people who are trying to offend will continue trying to offend regardless of the words used, you can even be offensive without using any of the "bad" words if you want.

Coloured. People of Colour (somehow different from coloured). Black. Brown. Asian. Half-caste. "BAME".
In the US there's "African-American" and similar terms which make about as much sense as "Asian" when the person isn't of African or Asian heritage but we're told to use these catch-all words to describe somebody where using the wrong word might be called racist.

It's all just word games, they're all words for the same groups of people, they've all been acceptable until they weren't, and racist people are still racist.

I agree with many of your points but its not a game. Words do hurt people and cause conditions like PTSD as they relive bullying or worse.

This is why I get furious at right wingers who call minorities snowflakes and demand they get over themselves.

It may not be a game for those who might be considered victims of verbal abuse containing these words, but it very much seems to be for those who play with language to control others. Many black people are happy to be called black; some wear it as a badge of honour, a symbol of their cultural history, and yet some random white person will run around screaming about how it's wrong to call people black. That's not solving racism, that's using issues of racism to bend people to your own personal beliefs - and worse, it can be detrimental because it just confuses and irritates people who give up trying, thinking they can never be right because the political correctness target keeps moving.

You are welcome.