Black and white are English words at least a thousand years old. They’ve taken on numerous positive, negative and neutral connotations over time. But all that heritage and utility doesn’t matter, and must be denied, because in 2023 it doesn’t suit some people’s politics to use ‘black’ in any context besides referring to a black person.
I think that’s a very sad and limiting attitude toward language.
MossyFeathers@pawb.social 1 year ago
Master/slave was understandable, but c’mon, blacklist/whitelist? You can’t convince me that has racist connotations to it; the black = bad, white = good thing has been around for an extremely long time. Quite honestly, it’s very easy to guess where it might have come from: black is dark, darkness is where nasties hide. White is bright, like a bright light, which illuminates the darkness and allows you to see where it’s safe.
Polar@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Or we can be happy they changed it to something easier to understand.
If you’re angry about a word change, when it makes it easier to understand, you’re probably racist.
I’m glad it’s easier to understand, and has the added benefit of PoC feeling more inclusive.
You’re angry because… idk? You’re racist? There’s no other reason to be outraged.
MossyFeathers@pawb.social 1 year ago
I’m not angry, I’m just confused TBH. It was never difficult to understand that a whitelist was good and a blacklist was bad. You whitelist good things, aka things you want, and you blacklist bad things, aka things you don’t want. How is that confusing or difficult to understand?
Secondly, it’s weird for you to jump to accusing someone of being angry and racist because they disagree with your stance. I can think it’s weird and possibly virtue signalling that they’d change it from whitelist/blacklist to allowlist/blocklist. Like, how many people actually got upset about whitelist/blacklist?
It’s like if I started getting mad at car people for shortening “transmission” to “trans” or “tr*nny”. They’re clearly talking about a car, not a person, so why do I care?
Polar@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
How was white and black descriptive?
I remember making a Minecraft server in 2009 and not understanding what whitelist and blacklist meant.
Allow/Block makes sense. White/Black doesn’t.