Again that’s not Scotts point. Scott is concerned about deliberate attempts to rapidly make a perfectly innocent word taboo, causing bother and potential ostracism to everyone for no reason, not natural long term evolution of words.
I don’t think such an attempt has ever happened and succeeded. I’m open to counterexamples, though.
The problem isn’t that most of the black people in the USA got together and said they prefer to be called black. It’s that due to a single bad actor making up a fake history for an innocent word, lots of old grandpas get ostracised by their grandkids for being racist.
I think Scott’s account of the history of the term “Black” is dubious.
I don’t think such an attempt has ever happened and succeeded. I’m open to counterexamples, though.
I think Scott’s account of the history of the term “Black” is dubious.