Underprivileged vs Untapped

Today, I was in a room on clubhouse asking for advice for my nonprofit. All the advice I have been getting is super negative. A lot of "it's so hard", "join someone else's" and "stick with being a speaker, you're a good speaker" but, that's what I get for asking strangers on the internet haha. One thing that stuck out to me though was when I said I wanted to help underprivileged girls this older male was like "UNTAPPED!! Never call them underprivileged they are untapped!" . I quickly apologized but, looking back on it I am not sure why I did. To call someone underprivileged is to acknowledge that they do not have the same access to resources other have. It is politically correct. Untapped makes it sound as though they have something you are trying to reap. Are they oil mines? In this day and age there are a lot of word watchers, phrase patrollers and saying savants lol. So focused on the term rather than the problem.

It reminded me of when one of my white classmates told me it was rude to call people foreign. I was like "um, you know I'm an immigrant right". So, many times we are so hung up on the vernacular that we miss the sentiment. Tone and inflection mean a lot too. The heart behind it means a lot too. But, so often we try to use vocabulary as a means to judge and categorize- when, merely it was meant to be a description. When he corrected me, I remember feeling super bad- like I had cussed someone out. Like I had called someone a slur. Reflecting on it- words are only as bad as you make them out to be and I think honestly we need to stop trying to be the word police and actually focus on what matters.