While the term blacklist does not originate from racist history, it has certainly been adopted by racists before computers, while terms like master and slave have clear links to slavery as a human history: in either case the terms along with others were found to be offensive to a large population and have since been changed to reflect human decency.
On “master” and “slave” I could be convinced. Those are directly potentially offensive terms. They’re also terms that went out of use when we stopped using IDE drives 20-ish years ago as far as I’m aware, but there may still be specific fields where they’re used.
But to ban the word “black” because it was adopted by racists feels kind of ridiculous. Aren’t we giving these racists a little too much power?
“White Good, Black Bad” is a pretty easy case to win when it comes to the “should we consider changing how we speak to not look like an asshole” debate.
It doesn’t seem easy to me, at all. Black/Dark also means night, shadow, invisible, while white infers light, visible, day. Lots of bad stuff happens in the shadow, and visa versa, and these themes are pretty universal throughout culture globally.
I guess globally folks are fine with referring to skincolors as white or black (which is oversimplified IMO), but locally the names of colors of the rainbow and the colors of human skins are not the same. Just like real life, because a caucasian’s skin is not colored pure white, and a dark skinned person is not colored pure black. Language brought the two closer together, skincolors and absolute color, but they are not the same. If I read all the alternatives to white and blacklist, none of them are instantly recognizable to me. That’ll happen eventually, and is not a reason to never change it. But saying black = skincolor so using the word black for bad = bad seems too simple.
Happenchance@lemmy.world 8 months ago
While the term blacklist does not originate from racist history, it has certainly been adopted by racists before computers, while terms like master and slave have clear links to slavery as a human history: in either case the terms along with others were found to be offensive to a large population and have since been changed to reflect human decency.
FMT99@lemmy.world 8 months ago
On “master” and “slave” I could be convinced. Those are directly potentially offensive terms. They’re also terms that went out of use when we stopped using IDE drives 20-ish years ago as far as I’m aware, but there may still be specific fields where they’re used.
But to ban the word “black” because it was adopted by racists feels kind of ridiculous. Aren’t we giving these racists a little too much power?
EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Master and slave are still used, like in brake cylinders I think.
Malfeasant@lemm.ee 8 months ago
The automotive field is just all kinds of insensitive… retarded ignition, tranny fluid, I’m sure there’s plenty more…
Happenchance@lemmy.world 8 months ago
“White Good, Black Bad” is a pretty easy case to win when it comes to the “should we consider changing how we speak to not look like an asshole” debate.
Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It doesn’t seem easy to me, at all. Black/Dark also means night, shadow, invisible, while white infers light, visible, day. Lots of bad stuff happens in the shadow, and visa versa, and these themes are pretty universal throughout culture globally.
I guess globally folks are fine with referring to skincolors as white or black (which is oversimplified IMO), but locally the names of colors of the rainbow and the colors of human skins are not the same. Just like real life, because a caucasian’s skin is not colored pure white, and a dark skinned person is not colored pure black. Language brought the two closer together, skincolors and absolute color, but they are not the same. If I read all the alternatives to white and blacklist, none of them are instantly recognizable to me. That’ll happen eventually, and is not a reason to never change it. But saying black = skincolor so using the word black for bad = bad seems too simple.
TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 8 months ago
The flame war over this is still very much alive in electronics engineering for things like SPI buses.
ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Changed… but have nothing to do with the other.
It’s like complaining that the Spanish word for black is “niger”. Best go change that, eh?
ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Image
EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well it isn’t, but maybe in French I would guess. In Spanish, it’s negra/o.
ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Oops! 🤦 my bad. Fixed.
dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Their point still stands.