Following Martin Luther King Jr. day, it’s an appropriate time to reevaluate how we treat others, and manage discussions about race. It’d be an understatement to say we’ve advanced far from the overt racial insensitivity of the mid 1900s, but that’s hardly a reason to drop the issue entirely. As we progress into an ideal world, devoid of race-based discrimination and prejudice, we will undoubtedly go through phases. As it stands, our current phase is an odd one.

Call it a “backlash” if you want to. Inadvertent backlash to a victory: the abolition of segregation, the election of a black president, and a society in 2014 that’s appropriately progressive. But the side effect of that progression is counterproductive, ever-present, political correctness.

Let’s get it out there: racism is bad. Most people don’t want to be a racist, and most people would hate to be accused of racial insensitivity. As it stands, most people can be so afraid of sounding racist that having a simple discussion about identity can be uncomfortable.

The problem is, those conversations need to be had. They ought to be had, and—wait for it—they ought to be uncomfortable. If the conversation isn’t uncomfortable, there’s a good chance you’re doing it wrong. The next step of our progression towards that ideal society is to have a vivid understanding of other’s identities, and to begin to stop fitting people in boxes based around their color.

There is no one answer to the questions that should be asked in a discussion about racial identity, because it can and should vary for whomever you’re talking to. And the only way to get those answers, and vividly understand someone else’s identity, is to ask those uncomfortable questions.

We don’t want to ignore race. For many people, not letting their background influence your perception of them could be erasing their identity in the same way that a stereotype would. Well-intentioned people can go to either extreme of making ethnicity a defining factor in how they view another person, or of disregarding it entirely because they want to be ‘color blind.’ You have to let people allow their ethnic background to be as important to them as they want it to be, but we can only know that by asking questions.

Probably the most awkward bit of the whole debacle is that all the while we’re waving around our political correctness flags, we still manage to possess virulent racial insensitivity below the surface. Whether that’s outright the distaste, gossip, and profiling of others behind their backs, or the astoundingly common use of offensive slurs and jokes in both the media and our language, we seem to be trying our hardest to avoid middle ground.

There’s quite a lot of space between backwards political correctness and total insensitivity, but it’s hard enough to find. Going to one extreme is easy—but finding respectable middle ground is difficult when issues aren’t being addressed properly. But how do we address difficult issues? You guessed it. By asking difficult questions.

But it’s easy enough to say “ask difficult questions” without framing the perspective of how we should begin to ask them. Certain subtleties need to be taken into account in a progressive discussion, chiefly that race shouldn’t be ignored. But it goes beyond that: well-meaning responses can actually minimize another person’s experiences. It sounds good to say “I know how you feel” in response to a heart-wrenching story, but false sympathy can be as harmful as no sympathy at all. Our stories and experiences should be appreciated for the unique elements they bring to the table—not simply what we can find in common with another person.

Remember: the person answering questions being asked (and the asker) should remember that their experience should represent their experience alone. When a person shares their experience, they aren’t a spokesperson for their entire race.

How we treat race is an understandably complicated issue, and more than a few good people have dedicated their lives to unraveling it. But we’ve had the opportunity here at SPA to carry on that legacy by discussing and developing our stances. It’s time for us to use that opportunity.