Too many times I've heard from friends, classmates, and family: "people are so sensitive nowadays. You can't say anything without people getting upset or angry."

To that, I say: Wake. Up. Let's chat for a moment.

Too many times groups of people, ones that have been pushed aside, disenfranchised, and marginalized have been the fire stoked with sticks of stereotypes, ignorance, and oppression. They have reason to become upset and criticize what you say.

Many are tired of this.

Like Reagan Myers says in The Girl Becomes Gasoline, "A spark stoked enough will burn down the entire house." In which case, the house is your own stubbornness and ignorance. Political correctness does not hinder conversation, but allows conversation to grow further out, demolishing all barriers put in place by closed-mindedness and the stubbornness to not look outside yourself.

Being politically correct does not make me rigid and sensitive, but rather allows me to have full conversations with others. "People are overly sensitive all the time" has become yet another excuse for people to not take other people into consideration or to look outward. Living in your own bubble, not looking outward and stepping into someone else's shoes, is not a way to live. In her 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech, JK Rowling stated that "Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that leads to its own terrors."

I once believed that being politically correct all the time was negative, and excludes all the fun in conversation. However, I soon realized it becomes inclusive of all topics and people.

It's a hard pill to swallow, but being politically correct - avoiding generalization, getting rid of biased terms, and tossing language that excludes and marginalizes - cures all conversational gray areas.