> I was raised with the philosophy that calling a person Black was offensive and that I should always use the term African-American. I always respected this. But apparently this changed in the matter of two years
No, it was never right in the first place, it didn’t change in 2 years. Racial labels have always been a matter where there are a variety of strong preferences shaped by different personal experiences.
The actual rule is listen to abd be respectful of your specific audience; being aware of the general discourse and issues (of which, any particular author's preferred terminology alone is the least important bit) is part of doing that for general or new audiences.
No, it was never right in the first place, it didn’t change in 2 years. Racial labels have always been a matter where there are a variety of strong preferences shaped by different personal experiences.
The actual rule is listen to abd be respectful of your specific audience; being aware of the general discourse and issues (of which, any particular author's preferred terminology alone is the least important bit) is part of doing that for general or new audiences.