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Comment by matt-attack | Hacker News Reader

Yep I've observed and described this process myself over the years. look at:

> "negro" => "colored" => "black" => "African American" => "person of color"

It's pretty inane when you think about it. At some point wouldn't people start noting that, hey, you're trying to solve something clearly, but what you're attempting to do is clearly not the right approach.

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It’s like a woke cycle. I’m not sure it’s really about the words, but in some ways, the new people look at the terrible attitudes of the previous people (easy to count on that) and feel the need to disavow it by creating a linguistic line in the sand.. some jump over it, but the others get the sharp end of the stick, culturally speaking.

The advocacy and social signaling feels more imperative than the ancillary social improvements that may be happening either way. It also feels generationally alienating, while some of the “I see things with new eyes” part can happen even among those who don’t even know the words have changed.

This does signal what type of person you are dealing with if they don't go along with the word change. For example, if I heard someone using the negro word I would think that there was an excellent chance that person was racist. The renaming also signals to everyone racism isn't acceptable (in a very minor way). It is hard to change a culture but the words we use in one of the ways we do it.

When the world stops being racist this renaming will stop.

> When the world stops being racist this renaming will stop.

As well say “renaming will not stop.” Something will always be wrong to someone. Change will always be right to someone.

I'm not sure about your example - "black" and "African American" are still perfectly acceptable terms, or did I miss something?

Regardless, it may be the case that a permanent state of euphemism treadmilling does solve a problem - a social signal, perhaps, to distinguish those who embrace social change and those who resist it. It's pretty effective at that too.

It's considered incredibly insensitive to refer to black people as "African American" as it makes a presumption about their nationality. See countless examples, of Americans thinking they're being polite and addressing, say, an Ethiopian woman, living in London as "African American".

Considered by whom? I happen to agree, it's a very silly term. However it's still in widespread use, and if it's losing ground at all it's to "Black" and "Black American", which is reverse to the direction you originally indicated.

It's the euphemism treadmill.

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