> Isn't political correctness just politeness ?

Maybe in theory, but in practice the cause has been subverted by both the professionally-offended who use offense to advance their own agenda or just seek attention, as well as those who want to virtue-signal by banning/shunning things that no reasonable person has a problem with. Both feed off each other while making things harder for reasonable people of any race/gender/sexual orientation.

> "I want to be a jerk"

I'd like to seriously understand who would be offended by the Git master branch being called "master" for example, especially since I don't believe the word in this context has any reference to slavery (but even if it did, I'd argue historical meanings of words are a good reminder to humanity of the horrible things we're capable of and to ensure we don't do those again).