Is "drank the kool-aid" offensive?

I know it is a common phrase - I work with people who know people who died at Jonestown. Many children died. I would not use the phrase personally.

Edited - my mom actually went to school with one of the leaders - the one that shot the congressman. And they had similar last names so their pictures are next to each other in the yearbook. I know many phrases have gruesome or non PC origins but this one is still fairly fresh to those it affected.

It doesn't bother me personally but I don't use it because I know where it comes from.

It's an insult for sure, so from that point of view it is offensive. I think it is a hurtful reminder for anyone whose family member was involved in Jonestown but doesn't IMHO fall into the same category as some phrases that are racial/ethnic insults.

When my husband and I use that phrase, in our personal, not outside in public, in conversation, it is pretty much offensive. It is generally used to discuss someone who just can't see pass the conceived norm. They just blindly follow what they are told.

I would not use it outside of my house.

My husband and I were raised in a cult and yes the phrase did offend me. We woke up and left 4 years ago but my husbands sisters are still in. Now I see the phrase as cautionary because I saw first hand how brainwashed you can get. It's scary.

Just about any phrase is offensive to someone. Whether society deems it offensive depends on who is offended and how loudly they protest. 

I'm not generally offended by much, but I do know this saying is meant as an insult so it's not a phrase I use.

see that is how I've mostly heard the phrase someone will say 'don't drink the kool aide' if they think that persons getting into a group/place that might cause them to change their normal actions being influenced by the group, in a cautionary way.

And while it's not less offensive, the person saying it in a cautionary way, is saying it because they care as opposed to putting a person down. So it feels different.

Yes, it is offensive...used today to imply a person hasn't used the ability to think for themselves. Most often it is political.

Some people say the peanut gallery was class-segregated, others say it was racial. Either way, it's an insult.

To call a spade a spade may not have started out as a racial slur, but it was certainly co-opted into one. It definitely wasn't a "misunderstanding." 

Like I said, I don't think people who use these terms today are purposely being malicious--but now that I know they might offend people, I steer away from them. I have plenty of other phrases to use...(some of those are probably offesnsive as well...) 

English language is full of phrases that have come from dubious origins. Like die hard. Coming from men who were  hung and took a long time to die.   A child's game, ring around the Rosie, coming from an event that killed 50 million people.   

I think people can overthink anything And become offended about over  anything they want to. 

I guess I'm just clueless as I didn't realize these were racist. I think a lot of saying have changed meanings over the years. I know I would never purposely use a saying as a racial slur. I want to know if something is as I sure wouldn't want to say something that is but dang it's hard to keep up sometimes. Some of these have been used for a long time and meanings have changed.

Sorry, typo.  Either way, super horrible and sad. Kids make it even more horrible But not about a section of our population.  It is a horrible event in history. Are horrible events "offensive" on their own? Or do they need to involve a negativity towards a group in our population?

If people are misunderstanding each other, then it qualifies as a misunderstanding. None of us can see into somebody's brain to discern what their history is with specific figurative language.

I was genuinely flummoxed when somebody jumped all over me a few years ago for using "call a spade a spade." And I'm not sure that person has actually ever heard somebody use that phrase racially. But based on her behavior, and her contempt for me, I'm absotively sure she BELIEVES she has. That's a misunderstanding. It wasn't a "misunderstanding."

If you declare unequivocally that "now we're going to hear from the peanut gallery/cheap seats" is an insult, what then do you do with both my father, who actually SAT in the peanut gallery for vaudeville performances (and fondly remembers yelling out approval or disapproval), and my friend, who sits in the cheap "bleacher bum" seats at Chicago Cubs games and yells his head off? Both men would be genuinely perplexed. That doesn't mean they don't ascribe class/cultural/behavioral associations to those seats; it's just that their associations are connected to class pride and good times. So, again, there would be misunderstandings.

Now, something like "gyp" or "kow-tow" or "welsh" or "Indian giver?" They were always intended as slur-ie associations. It just took me to adulthood to understand what the words coming out of my mouth actually meant. So, horse of a different color. (No offense to horses of color.)

I'll keep saying scotch tape, though. LOL.

This is how I see it. I would have thought that people would be offended because they're being accused of being mindless sheep, not because it's possibly disrespectful to the 900 people who died. 

ETA: But I will take on board that there are people who find it offensive because of the background story.