Do you use folks naturally, or do you use it because you've been told people is offensive? In neither of those cases is the OP asking you to modify your natural

Do you use folks naturally, or do you use it because you've been told people is offensive? In neither of those cases is the OP asking you to modify your natural speech; he is fine with the first case, and in the second case he is telling you not to modify your speech based on what others have said about it! If you naturally use it because you genuinely believe people is offensive, then he's absolutely telling you to modify your speech, but that is because he thinks you are wrong and you are the problem and he directly disagrees with you and he's not shy about it, which I think is fine. There's no pretence at neutrality there, and if you are neutral then he's not saying what you think.