I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said "well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip." And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.
Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me until it's already said.
Oof. At work we currently have a project for words deemed insensitive. For the most part I think it's worthy, but some things are overboard. The project group cast a very wide net, ignoring context and etymology. My biggest disagreement is over "black" and "white".
Take "black box" and "white box" for types of testing. These are based merely on the properties of light. I have serious doubts about anyone ever having felt excluded by their use. And yet, we're wasting time coming up with non-standard nomenclature to satisfy this supposed slight. There's a whole laundry list of words like this.