Please be warned. Some of this can be upsetting.

My husband's job involves dealing with the public, often people who are homeless, addicted, and/or dealing with mental illness. He often comes home and tells me about something silly or stupid that a co-worker or a customer did that day. That's fine. Telling your wife about your day at work is normal. However, it also reveals some very disturbing things about his way of thinking. While some of his attitudes have improved in the time I've been married to him, some problems remain. I would like to know how to deal with it, or else I'd like it confirmed that it can't be dealt with.

Ordinarily he's a good person. But he has blind spots, as we all do, and he can't see where these things are problematic.

1.) Greatly improved: His attitude toward homelessness and mental illness. It helps that I also deal with mental illness, and that I've been homeless myself. I sometimes have to remind him that the labels he throws on those people might just as easily apply to his wife. He shouldn't say about them what he wouldn't want said about me.

2.) Still a big problem: When he tells me his work stories, I don't need to know what color or what sexual orientation the person involved is. Only sometimes is it relevant to the situation. Can't he just describe the behavior, without mentioning those things? He doesn't tell me about something "a straight man" or "a white woman" did. He'll merely say "a man" or "a woman." When he doesn't specify race or orientation, it's a pretty safe bet that the person involved is white and straight. But if one or both of those doesn't apply, you can be sure he will mention it. And he doesn't see the problem with that, because he's not actually using derogatory terms. If I speak up, he will insist he's only describing, not judging. Then he'll accuse ME of "bringing race into it."

Is there a way to explain what's wrong with this? Or is he never going to get it? He's in his mid-50's, by the way.