> Only the 0.01% of people who go out of their way to look for things to get offended about are going to get offended.
Or the people who are.. constantly reminded of the ignorance around them. Consider that people who are actually called Eskimo by others, might hear this more often than someone who doesn't look the part.
Frequency really changes the game here. Everybody who had a little brother will know: someone saying something annoying to you once is easy to shake off, someone who saying the same annoying thing to you constantly, day in and day out can be nervewrecking. Now imagine how much worse it is if the annoying thing comes from whole parts of society and every day. If you talk to people affected by such things (e.g. women by sexist remarks) the main thing that makes the difference is how frequent those things happen and my feeling is that many people can't even imagine.
It is nice to see that many people can not relate to this, because they had it easier, but confusing your own perspective with all shared reality is not an advantage.
Or one could also choose to not deliberately misinterpret words and thus not get annoyed about it.
Like if you’re a software engineer and someone refers to you as an engineer, you don’t get all annoyed and pedantically explain that you’re not someone who drives trains, because you know that’s not the sense in which the person meant the word.
Have you met software engineers?
I imagine there are plenty who very pedantically explain the difference.
In my experience, it’s hard not to take offense when the word being used is frequently used by people who are intending offense. Our brains are hardwired to perceive attacks, and if I’ve been attacked by people using similar wording before lower-level functions are assuming anyone using that wording is attacking me.
The example used in this thread, Eskimo, is probably harmless from people who don’t interact much with Inuit people. But to an Inuit person, the people who live near them using the word Eskimo are probably being insulting. Sure they might judge that e.g. a Belgian internet commentator didn’t mean offense, but their brain is jumping to that conclusion and then being talked off that ledge.
Or the people who are.. constantly reminded of the ignorance around them. Consider that people who are actually called Eskimo by others, might hear this more often than someone who doesn't look the part.
Frequency really changes the game here. Everybody who had a little brother will know: someone saying something annoying to you once is easy to shake off, someone who saying the same annoying thing to you constantly, day in and day out can be nervewrecking. Now imagine how much worse it is if the annoying thing comes from whole parts of society and every day. If you talk to people affected by such things (e.g. women by sexist remarks) the main thing that makes the difference is how frequent those things happen and my feeling is that many people can't even imagine.
It is nice to see that many people can not relate to this, because they had it easier, but confusing your own perspective with all shared reality is not an advantage.