timberwraith
When you see someone appealing to "common sense" when defending prejudice/bigotry, they're encouraging people to suspend thought or criticism that might challenge prejudice, and instead, retreat unthinkingly to the comfortable inertia of the social norms which establish the prejudice in question.
"Common sense" is a thought-stopping phrase and concept. It is the same as saying, "Just go with cultural traditions which support prejudice and oppression because those are familiar and comfortable."
timberwraith
Many people tend to just go with whatever "feels right" to them. Challenging them to examine their prejudices and bigoted behaviors is a challenge to what feels comfortable and normal because that harm was normalized from the time they are children onward to adulthood.
Retreating to "common sense" is a self-soothing act in the face of one's normalized harm toward others being called out and opposed.
timberwraith
Or, put another way, "This person is making trouble by opposing common cultural understandings that support oppression. It's OK to dismiss their objections because the culture you have known your entire life supports mistreating this person or group of people."
"Common sense" references that entire unspoken subtext. It does so obliquely by encouraging a person to just go with whatever flawed assumptions they might already have which allow them to feel comfort in the familiar.
timberwraith
When prejudice and bigotry are normalized by the larger culture as everyday, acceptable ways of seeing and treating others, "common sense" will automatically incorporate that normalization of harm into what feels "logical" and "familiar."
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