Political Correctness does not seem to be totally compatible with comedy, free speech, art, literature, etc. Amongst people of goodwill, what a person is saying is much more important than how they say it.
@bradenslen I think it is a difficult topic to discuss, due in no small part to the phrase "political correctness" having been deliberately engineered as an epithet and caricature over the last twenty years by the conservative right. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that people consider how what they are saying might be coming across to everyone in the room. I also think there may be more overlap and interplay between what is being said and how it is being said than is generally acknowledged.
@petebrown No it's not unreasonable to consider the feelings of others. It's a bit better now, but I remember the smugness of the Clinton era years, where some vet on the television would only use the term "animal companion" instead of "pet". Trust me, your cat does not care. Or the term "Native American" - which was cooked up in Washington DC at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the late 1960's (probably by white people). Nobody ever asked Native Americans what they wanted to be called until the Clinton era when somebody did a study and found out that the majority of Native Americans wanted to be referred to by either tribe and band or band and clan. That makes the term "Native American" not much better than "American Indian".
I'm all for calling people by the term they want. But a lot of these terms are just euphemisms, made up by well meaning white people but abused by others.
Too many people think PC means to never offend anybody at any time and to never make anyone uncomfortable - ever. That leads to a pretty meaningless and artificial dialog.