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I'm a downvoter: I find arguments like this one to be ideological rants and not valuable. For every person and in every culture, offending people is considered wrong. To suggest that it doesn't matter is not a serious argument. Apparently 'slave' doesn't offend you. It doesn't offend me either (I remember being a little uncomfortable with it long ago, when I first encountered it, but I don't notice it now). But for me to say that therefore it is not offensive to others would be ignorant and self-centered, as if the world revolves around my views and experiences. If others say they are offended then I respect that; I hope they would respect my concerns if I was offended. Also, a common cause of discrimination is due to honest ignorance on the part of people in the dominant group. Like all humans, they are blind to things that they don't experience themselves; for example, consider law enforcement discrimination against minorities. It's happened for decades or centuries, but wasn't taken seriously until we actually had film of it due to the spread of cameras. That's another good reason to think that whether or not something bothers me is not evidence of whether it offends others. Finally, the dominant culture in the U.S. was built at a time of widespread, accepted discrimination, and many artefacts of that time persist. People may get tired of seeing so much of it being challenged and changed, from school buildings named after slave holders; Confederate flags; and movie casts, company executives, etc. being almost all white and mostly male, etc. But being tired of the challenge and change, rather than of the discrimination, is a 'first world' problem, so to speak. |
That's actually not at all true. For many people, and in many cultures, certain things are considered both wrong and proper subjects for offense, certain things are considered wrong when they are the subject of offense (and thus are also proper, while not necessary, subjects of offense), and other things are not considered wrong independently of whether some people find them offensive (and, in fact, being offended by them, or at least expressing such offense, may be considered wrong itself.)
The idea that anything that anyone finds offensive is, ipso facto, wrong is not a cultural universal, and AFAICT not held by many people at all (even people who seem in some contexts to appeal to that idea seem to find some instances of offense unjustified and unworthy of consideration.)