The True Meaning of "Civility"

Upon initially reading the first few words of "Civility Not Censorship", without going any further into the essay, one would assume that Chavez intends to preach a compliance within politics progressively throughout her article. However, while this may be partially accurate, Chavez really desires to stress the importance of what "civility" actually means, which is in fact contradicting to the views of some politicians.   For the duration of the article, Chavez is entirely focused on recognizing the root of the majority of political corruptions and disasters. She realizes that the core to all of the distortion is certainly not offensive words or phrases, but the meaning and tone in which they are based upon. Although diction is important, it would be useless without purpose and context buried beneath the word.
 Politics has become a battlefield of arguments solely based on whether or not a word is offensive. Chavez puts emphasis on this war-like institution by using the word "bellicose". She cleverly chooses this word in order to accent how uncivilized politics has become by admonishing the usage of certain words for recent campaign-related tragedies.
Another way in which Chavez reveals her attitude toward civility and attempts to reveal her theory (words themselves aren't the problem, it's the meaning behind those words) is by using specific examples. One such example that I believe to be the most sufficient is the Los Angeles Times reference. Chavez states that the magazine previously put restrictions on the usage of various words such as "Indian", "Hispanic", "ghetto" and "inner-city". Instead writers were recommended to use "Native American" or "Latino" when describing race. This citation truly revealed to me how extremely frivolous eliminating possibly offensive words from public discussion and writing is. I fail to understand the reason why a person of Spanish decent would be insulted if i referred to them as a "Hispanic" but would be completely content if I were to call them a "Latino". The only distinction that could possible separate these identical words would be the meaning behind them. And that's exactly what Chavez intends to prove throughout her entire article.
Conclusively, I can say that I agree with Chavez. Words will not, and never have, created stereotypes or insults, only people reserve that right.