Comment on If "Master/Slave" terminology in computing sounds bad now, why not change it to "Dom/Sub"?
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks agoBut it’s easy to imagine a bouncer at a club with a list of whites allowed in and blacks that aren’t. I don’t think that’s the etymology, but it’s also important to remember that language is alive and words can take on unintended meaning.
that seems like an oddly specific origination for that specific term, but it’s certainly a possibility. But as with words being alive and taking on unintended meanings, it’s also equally likely that it became skin color agnostic at some point, and the term stuck because it was already being used.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I didn’t mean that it originated with bouncers, I meant I imagined it coming to be associated with race in such a way 😅
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
yeah no i understand, i’m just saying that’s a potential point where i could’ve originated and then morphed over time. Even if it was founded on race originally, it’s not super likely it would matter today in any broader contexts.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Idk if that’s for white folks like me (and you?) to decide), and there is no harm on erring on the side of caution.
It’s like the deal with micro-aggressions. Alone they’re not much, but a constant buildup of these little things can leave someone feeling raw and very sensitive to it.
I don’t think the etymology started with race, I think it started with day/night. But I’m not an expert on etymology, and while I’m very curious, it probably doesn’t really matter here.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
yeah, probably not, and that’s why i tend to err on the side of these discussions not being very productive. As for erring on the side of caution, idk. I’m not really sure theres that much caution even present to begin with. It might even be sufficient enough to just not use the terms around specific people per their request, or not at all, who knows.
i think my problem, is that people have a very analytical and sterile approach to these things. In terms of classifying and denoting things micro aggressions as a term makes sense. But from a broader societal perspective, i think it’s useless, if not negatively impactful.
It’s better to identity specific facets of society that are problematic, for example treatment and behavior of certain people differently from others, as opposed to “treating the symptom” so to speak.
it really could’ve been from anything, but at the end of the day whatever it started from is irrelevant to it’s use case today, and anybody using it to be offensive is offensive for other reasons at that point.