The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the other (though the 2020 innovation "bodies of color" managed to find a way to be more degrading than the worst that Stormfront could come up with).
Why? We feel powerless to fix the problems that plague our society, so instead we turn to things we have agency over. Maybe we can't prevent group X from suffering from social discrimination, but if everything is just a matter of what words we use, we can just choose to use those words, stridently denounce everyone who hasn't gotten with the program, and pat ourselves on the back and call it a day.
Why? We feel powerless to fix the problems that plague our society, so instead we turn to things we have agency over. Maybe we can't prevent group X from suffering from social discrimination, but if everything is just a matter of what words we use, we can just choose to use those words, stridently denounce everyone who hasn't gotten with the program, and pat ourselves on the back and call it a day.