These wholesale moves to prescribe new language in the interest of social justice are the reductio ad absurdum result of the whole menagerie of post-modern iden

These wholesale moves to prescribe new language in the interest of social justice are the reductio ad absurdum result of the whole menagerie of post-modern identity theories and movements, from critical race theory to post colonial theory to queer theory. It's all in service to the notion that you can create truth, particularly about identity, by modifying language and usage. Ironically, it's also deeply counterproductive to the goals of identity theories, because it draws overt attention to language and sensitivity about language, in a way that makes identities appear, and to some extent actually become, fragile and dependent on the language. Where a word is owned and deployed by a group to suppress and control some other group (ni**, e.g.), taking the word away, anathematizing it, can indeed be of value. But most of the targets in modern social justice language correction have very little such power, and are not deployed as tools of suppression or oppression by most people. Take a broad enough run at them though, and you can give them that power, at lead in the mind of those to whom the refer.