The committee to eliminate unsafe language

"Thank you for joining me here at such short notice," said Emma. All of the heads around the table nodded acknowledgement, except for the two that the others were pretending not to notice.

"As you all know," Emma continued, "GitHub has announced that they will henceforth be changing the name of their primary code branch from 'master' to 'main', in order to avoid using racially-charged language." She paused for effect. "I think we can all agree that this puts us under a lot of pressure."

Brett looked confused. "Why is that? Isn't that, like, a good thing?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Try to keep up, Brett. GitHub are a bunch of nerds and geeks. How does it look if they're more woke than us artists?"

"Yeah", agreed Kylie. "We gotta do something about that."

"Exactly!" Emma slapped her hand on the table. "We need to go up a level. We need to identify and root out all the racist, sexist, and other offensive terms in everyday language. And we need it by six o' clock today."

"Why so soon?" asked Brett. 

"Because that's the deadline for today's news cycle at my station," said Emma, with a condescending smile. "If we leave it longer, it'll lose its impact in relation to the GitHub story. Dustin, you can get this into your news site by tonight, too, right? Ok, so let's get started. What words can you think of that might offend someone?"

Brett swore.

"Wassa matter, Brett?" said Kylie.

"Nothing," said Brett. "Just, you asked what words might offend someone, so I said that word."

Emma slammed the table with her fist. "Jesus, you privileged s----for-brains douchebag, we're looking for words that might offend minorities!"

"I got one," said Dustin. "'Supermarket'. It evokes the days when Black slaves were sold like cattle in a market. We should remove that word from our language, and instead call it a 'store', or a 'superstore'."

"Good, good," mumbled Emma, making notes on her iPad. "What else?"

"How about 'manual'?" suggested Kylie. "People always tell you to 'read the f--- manual'. It's so, like, mansplaining, and it's like a dog whistle for sexists."

"Um...the word 'manual' is from the Latin for 'hand'...it's got nothing to do with men," ventured Brett hesitantly. "I know this, coz I did Latin for my Literature major."

"Yeah, like the Romans weren't a male-dominant society of slave-owners?!" countered Kylie. "We shouldn't use any terms that come from their oppressive language!"

"That would be...like...the whole English--"

But Brett's reply was cut off by Dustin. "I'm offended by the term 'family'. It has historical connotations of suppression of LGBTQ people, and imposition of binary gender options. We should rather call it a 'loving unit', or, like, come up with a new term that conveys this, like, 'lovunit'."

A hush fell over the room for a few seconds, aside from a faint slurping sound coming from the corner that everyone else was steadfastly trying to ignore. "Dustin...that is absolutely genius!" exclaimed Emma. "This will be totally transformative of our whole society! Out with 'families'; in with 'lovunits'!"

"Yeah!" exclaimed Kylie. "I'm gonna write my next song about that!"

"Let's see those privileged geeks at GitHub top this!"

There was a general chorus of approval and excitement. With the wind in their sails, the team set to work, compiling a formidable collection of words to be eliminated from the English lexicon, including "police", "mail", and "trump". 

Brett looked over the fruits of their labor proudly. "This is going to be the most awesome blacklist, like, ever!"

An awkward silence ensued. Emma, Dustin, and Kylie were staring at Brett with looks of horror and revulsion.

"What?" said Brett. "Did I say something wrong?"

Emma's face curled into a snarl. "Get. Out. Of. Here. You...racist!"

Brett turned white and jumped to his feet. "No! I'm not a racist! I love black people! Really!"

"OUT!" screeched Emma, also on her feet now. Brett looked to Dustin and Kylie for support, but found none in their angry scowls. Head bowed, he slowly shuffled out the door.

In the silence that followed, Dustin shot a furtive, awkward look at the two people who had not yet participated in the discussion, then spoke up. "I just have to say, Heather, I am right now finding your body language very threatening."

Heather pulled her lips away from Trevon's with a loud sucking sound. When Trevon tried to re-engage, she touched her finger playfully to his nose. "Not now, honey, they're talking to me."

Trevon looked at the other people in the room, as if he had just noticed them now. "Oh, hey guys."

Heather turned to Dustin. "Did you say something to me?"

Dustin lowered his eyes to the table and flushed red. "I said, I am right now finding your body language very threatening."

Heather's face dropped. "Oh, hey, Dustin, I'm so sorry; I really didn't mean anything. I should have realized my hetero PDA would be offensive to you because you're gay."

"I'm not gay," said Dustin sheepishly. "I just...broke up with my girlfriend a week ago, and I'm feeling...sensitive about it."

"You're not gay?" exclaimed Emma, aghast. "Damn, and I thought you were so cool. Well, even if we don't have a gay, at least we have a person of color here in this focus group." She turned to Trevon with a saccharine-sweet smile. "Trevon, I'm so happy Heather brought you. What do you think of our list of unacceptable vocabulary? When you think about a world without all these threatening terms, does it make you feel more..safe? More respected?"

Trevon hesitated. "Well...I wasn't really..." He glanced at his watch. "Oh s---, is that the time?!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Stupid f--- n---! I'm gonna be late for my nuclear physics class!" And still cursing himself loudly, he charged across the room and disappeared through the door.

The four remaining people looked at each other.

"So," said Emma. "We're on for six o' clock release, then?"