Linux team approves new terminology, bans terms like 'blacklist' and 'slave' | Hacker News Reader

Linux team approves new terminology, bans terms like 'blacklist' and 'slave'

zdnet.com

22 pointskiyanwang43 comments

dupe

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23810780

Is chess master also racially charged word ?

I don't think so. They aren't a master because of a chess slave. It's a title earned in a "fair" championship, as opposed to a title of ownership/dominion over the defeated players.

Another parallel would be a master's degree (there is no slave's degree), given to someone that attained knowledge in a field (as opposed to "enslaving" the knowledge).

Chess master literally dominates most if not all ranked players below master level.

But the other levels are not know as slaves.

Seems like you implying slave is another N world, I think I get this aspect, but then what about colors of chess pieces ?

It's not an N word. It is the association with slavery, and that being the basis of the name, that is the issue. The black pieces are equal to the white pieces in chess.

Black pieces are not equal in chess game both statistically and as a consensus among players, because white moves first, and the first move is an advantage in a chess game.

does it mean so much to you that these terms are not renamed? if they do mean that much to you perhaps consider why you feel that way. if they don't mean that much to you, why argue about it? especially if it means nothing to you but can mean something to someone else, something that causes no real hardship for you, why can't you do that for a fellow human without it needing to be justified.

Because any way I look at the social issues it does not make sense to me, same as I would go to doctor and tell him my head hurts and his suggestion would be to change my nickname on HK, same as my program has a bug, but instead of identify issue, I would try to rename a project name.

I ask myself where this stops, what next terms used on non-living entities we have to rename that some people perceive offense when used outside context and most importantly when such terms applied to humans.

What kind of exemplary action does this demonstrate for future generations?

In short, this is what kind of example it demonstrates to me, when you have a serious issue, instead of addressing this issue, let's look where we can rename words without any purpose, just so we look we put effort in addressing given issue.

These sorts of changes are not meant to be cures or fixes for the problem. They are intended as a way to change our language to improve inclusion and remove negative connotations. If you think this is all that is being done, or all that should be done, or shouldnt be done at all then again you fall on the side of the problem. If your argument is "this won't fix anything" then perhaps start on the big fixes that will, but until then don't spend energy criticising people who are trying. Every journey starts with a single, small step. Don't be the obstacle.

> They are intended as a way to change our language to improve inclusion and remove negative connotations.

How does it removes negative anything is beyond my mental gymnastics, as I pointed out in previous posts.

Your issue with criticism does not make sense ether, instead of attacking me personally; why not to try to exemplify why and how renaming terms removes negative connotations that address social issues ?

That argument is pretty old and stale.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/24/taxpayer-funde...

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/racism-in-chess-whi...

Can you please elaborate, because if chess colors have nothing to do with racism then how does master/slave and white/black list is ?

Master/Slave is quite explicitly racist given the context of European colonisation of the “western world” (mostly fuelled by slave labour, and most of that cohort was forcibly extracted from Africa and non-European origins).

Blacklists have recently become a target because of the connotation that black is bad and white is good. It’s that simple.

In Chess (had you read the documents I linked) you would know that there is no requirement that white move first, or even that the side be black and white — I had one set of azure and orange stones, and another which was Elves vs Dwarves. The only requirement is that the two set be different so you can tell which pieces are yours or your opponents.

Applied context that fits your narrative is not sufficient justification for action, and if it is then black/white pieces should be changed also, as you pointed out this your self, black/white - good/bad. Furthermore terms literally applied same way on chess as master/slave in technology, and importantly both terms are applied on inanimate entities. Words pawn is offensive world when applied to people, same as sheep. We are not changing this words, but I guess you are arguing that because world slave through history has only meaning of person that is controlled by another person it is a bad word and should not be used. But then word, master, kings, queens are equally bad words and should be banned also, as is pawn. I am not philologist nor willing to put effort in my own research, but if I had to guess there are many unacceptable words by such unreasonable standards.

I am not sure what would you like me to see in links you provided, since both discussions are in agreement with what I am saying here to a large degree.

I am not sure how you can't see that changing names do not change actions, master/slave will be an action does not matter what terms you use, and how it is wrong as long as it applies on inanimate entities, is beyond my understanding. Furthermore, I do not think word slave should be forgotten, it should be healthy reminder of how evil we where, can be in future, and that slavery exists today.

I am sure you would agree; that it is ignorant behavior forgetting or suppressing an issue, instead of making issue more visible to attack it directly.

No, this is less about the word master and more about the word “slave.”

Ok, but what about colors ?

Instead of engaging in literal whatboutism, consider that the conversation at hand is about specific words. Nobody is talking about colors but you.

You're forgetting about the blacklist/whitelist renaming.

So is it wrong to use a master branch now? If so, it'll be interesting to see how Git(*) responds to this.

They have announced they're going to change the default branch to "main" (or was that github?)

GitHub are changing master to main, lots of big and small open source projects have already done so/are planning to do so https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/15/github_replaces_maste...

Lots of organisations are switching to using main.

Sigh, really? Is this stuff really about race or is it just a terminology used to express ideas - I really don't feel policing of language this way helps make important changes in society that need to be addressed more likely. These sort of things are at worst a distraction and at best likely to result in the opposite of what people want and leads to resentment of fundamentally good causes.

I think it’s important to get black people’s opinions on this, it’s easy to sit here as a white person and say “it’s just a word! PC gone mad!”. Speaking for myself, I don’t know if you’re black or whatever.

Words are very important, I’m sure we’ve all heard a stirring speech or debate that made us feel strongly, is it so ridiculous to think that words like this could also make some communities feel strongly?

My wife used to say that a lot of the words were sexist and violent in programming - e.g. when I talked about killing a child process, I never thought about it, but some do it seems.

(I've also had women say, they'd never become programmers - its to competitive and macho), to be more inclusive language means something to many people. I'd feel silly for example if instead of saying fork a process, we say we nurture a child process. I can't speak to race - grumpy old white guy, but I can see how it would matter.

But this is where new meaning has been attached to words by the people using them. Words alone apart from one specific word aren’t inherently racist or in the example you give anything to do with juvenile murder.

Girls in school avoid CS because the dudes themselves were assholes. I saw this firsthand countless times.

Once critical mass is reached (enough girls where they don’t feel like outsiders) the machismo calms down. Not once have I ever heard a girl in class say anything about the language. It’s always been about the behavior of the boys.

There are studies that support the fact that language influences culture. And at least some sectors like education system and some universities already have guidelines to use inclusive language.

Words hurt a lot. People might downplay then but there's a psychology of silence associated with prejudicial words. Not everybody sees it or cares but the focus should always be to remove these obstacles to target inclusion. If this requires an extra code review cycle to remove prohibited words then just do it already.

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