I went to college in the '90s at the height of political correctness. On our first day of school we were taught a list of words that would not be tolerated. They were offered as examples of "hate speech." One of those words was "girl." In this heightened atmosphere, a classmate of mine asked if it was OK to say the word "Jew." (In case anyone's still wondering, yes. Yes it is, provided it doesn't follow the phrase, "Let's murder that dirty ___.) Y'see, context is everything, and there's always a danger in trying to divine someone's intent merely from their ability to adhere to the selected vocabulary of the day.

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For example, did you know "Findangos" is a slur against Finnish people?

Well, I mean it is now because I just made it up and said it on the Internet.

Over the years, I was pleased to see some of the worst forms of knee-jerk political correctness die down. People seemed to stop assuming someone was a Klansman for saying "black" instead of "African American." Some women started self-identifying as "girls" in certain contexts, which never happened while I was at school. But now we have a new kind of political correctness, which in many ways I think can be more harmful to the cause of mutual respect and understanding: "Check your privilege."