[moduspol]

> What is politeness but acting in a manner that is respectful of the sensitivities of our peers?

Reciprocation. Politeness goes both ways. Giving your peer the respect in understanding that clearly s/he was not invoking a term for its racial connotations is part of that.

> Perhaps the heart of the issue here is that when the sensitivities of certain people are not deemed to be worthy of polite respect, we are implicitly deciding that those people are not worthy of being our peers.

Yep. That's the "woke" movement in a nutshell.

The rest of us will just treat each other like adults capable of understanding nuance.

[richiebful1]

I want to point out that legutierr and stef25 had a respectful back and forth here. legutierr pointed out the connotations of lynching and stef25 recognized they could've used better language. I don't see the harm here, just a little reminder of American history.

[moduspol]

I don't think it was intended to be disrespectful, but stef25's response was clearly in irony, given his original post. The idea that s/he was genuinely unaware and appreciative of the response seems unlikely.

[legutierr]

Please point out to me where I myself was impolite, or where I accused OP of intentionally invoking the term for its negative connotations.

Is some behavior only rude if the person knows that it will be offensive? I think if a 16 year old picks his nose in a job interview, you’d still think he was rude, even if you knew his parents didn’t raise him right.

When I was growing up, we used the word “gyp” as a synonym for “cheat”. As in “Don’t g** me out of what you owe me!” Earlier generations would use the word “jew” as a verb in a similar way.

As kids, we were ignorant of the origin of these words. Does that fact make our use of them them less offensive and rude? What would you tell your kid if you heard him say to a friend, “You better not j** me out of what you owe me!” Personally, I would be mortified, even if I knew it came from a place of ignorance.

What’s the difference here?

[moduspol]

I didn't previously claim you were impolite, although I do think you were.

If this were a peer you knew and respected personally, calling them out in front of other peers and suggesting others might think he meant it in a racist way when it doesn't relate to the issue at hand would be impolite. It implies you might think the speaker intended to invoke racist connotations, which derails the conversation and raises questions about the potential racism of the speaker in the minds of other participants.

> As kids, were ignorant of the origin of these words. Does that fact make our use of them them less offensive and rude?

The issue here isn't ignorance. Your examples are racial slurs. "Lynch" is not a racial term, nor is "firehose" or "bus". There are potentially offensive connotations to all of those words based on prior history, yet somehow we are able to grasp the nuance when used in a different context. At least today.

> What’s the difference here?

The meanings of the words.

Being able to make a theoretical case as to how something could be offensive (if framed in a way it was not framed) is not the same as usage of a racial slur. Dropping the n-word casually is not equivalent to using a branch named "master" in your git repo. We're way past "politeness" and well into viewpoint enforcement, and I think you know this.