Comment by BobaFloutist
6 days ago
90% of this list is less the slur treadmill and more the MLA/AP Stylebook version treadmill. Nobody's going to get mad at you for writing African American, unless you work for a newspaper, it's largely motivated by MLA and AP wanting to sell new books every year or two, same as how titles were underlined when I was in grade school and now they're italicized.
I thought the underlining thing had more to do with practical limitations of (most people's) handwriting and of common typewriters. Italics, when available, have been preferred for titles as far back as I'm aware.