I did not say that the past of phrases is irrelevant. I said that the past of three specific phrases is irrelevant. Which of the words in my list triggers you when it is used by someone who has no racial animus?

At the same time that I am learning BLM Newspeak, I must also learn Transspeak and PETA’s list of taboo anthropocentric metaphors (like “take the bull by the horns”), and God knows what other grievance-mongers’ semantic hoop-tricks. Each one of these bits of semantic warfare is, well, a microaggression, a word I am ok using because each is intended to make others feel like jerks for being human. At the end of the day, most of us just shrug and suggest a thicker skin and a more charitable disposition.

Many anti-racist writers on Medium seek to redefine words so as to change their meaning but keep their connotation. It’s a losing battle over time, but liberals don’t usually care about such things. If it seems to work, they do it. The OP mentioned three such attempts that I reject.

Three less arcane examples are “racism,” “privilege,” and “aggression” (as in “microaggression”). Racism used to require animus. Now, according to Black racists who don’t like being called out, you have to be White to be racist. This is not a fight over behaviors and attitudes; it’s just a fight over ownership of a word.

“Privilege,” as used by those who attack it as something White people enjoy unknowingly, means insouciance, which, for people who take historic usages seriously and know the history of Haiti, would be the perfect word for it. Black people rightly complain about the stresses of being Black in America, but “insouciance” isn’t sufficiently sinful to describe their absence, even though that is precisely what those attacking White “privilege” seek.

“Aggression” is intentional. Maybe “microdiminishments” would be a more precise term, but, again, this game is not about precision; it’s about connotation.

I have empathy for those who suffer even inadvertent discomfort. But I am not a totalitarian, and I resist attempts to root out every vestige of dead metaphors. In the great game of Rock, Paper, Scissors called life, justice trumps freedom, but tyranny trumps justice, and freedom trumps tyranny. When those purporting to promote justice actually deploy tyranny (think “cancel culture”), freedom must reassert itself. Empathy has nothing to do with it.