How come the nominal form to describe a group of marginalized people often ends up becoming derogatory? (I’m gonna use fictional groups for this to avoid offending people) Let’s say that in my fictional universe where every Linux distro is a person, the Debian-based distros are marginalized, so how come saying “Debians” would become offensive whereas “Debian-based distros” would become the preferred term?
Secondly, how come putting “the” in front can make it offensive as well “the Debians”
Thirdly, how come less formal terms (think “Debbies”) also end up becoming offensive
Note: I’m not advocating for using the nominal form, I’m just asking why it is the way it is, I will continue to use forms that are preferable to marginalized groups.
Cuz the people that refer to persecuted groups via their marginalized identity are bigots 99 times out of 100.
By being a little more polite and humanizing you can avoid sounding like them, which is why the more formal term “Debian-based distro” probably wouldn’t have the same connotations as “a Debian”.