You kid but i've received 2 pull-requests on my open-source project, which only goal was to replace "Blacklist" with "Blocklist" in the app preferences.
I don't receive many PRs. This is a real trend.
I don't receive many PRs. This is a real trend.
It's complete bullshit, though. This particular bullshit is awful since it trivializes all this historic pain to some inane game of word association.
There's no point arguing, though, just drag your heels until they get bored and go off on some other crusade.
I've been having to unfollow a ton of podcasts recently because no matter how far from being related to politics some podcasts are, they just love to make sure a chunk of the episode is devoted to calling white people privileged and talking about different groups burdens. I was listening to a podcast episode talking about Skyways in a city and somehow half the podcast ended up being about how the skyways affected certain racial groups. It's a podcast that is supposed to be focused on the cool architectural features and infrastructure of cities. Somehow it ends up being a political podcast about racial inequality.
Sometimes I just want to be able to relax, but I feel like wherever I go whether it be TV, Movies, Podcasts, or even the news, I feel like I am being attacked wherever I go and that I have to be afraid of offending someone with what I say.
Even just making this comment I'm afraid it's going to be downvoted because of mentioning races in a somewhat negative sounding way.
I just named something "blacklist" a couple of days ago. It has nothing to do with races, nor slavery. The only thing they have is a person in-between who connects the two because s/he is a troll, or because lacks context-awareness or whatever.
I do not enable them.
What's hilarious to me is that I think the people who find there to be a problem with these words are the racist ones themselves. They are taking a word out of context and being offended by it out of context. They are the ones looking at a word and thinking negative racist thoughts.
When I use the word "master" or "blacklist" it has nothing to do with any old historical context or usage of the word. I am quite clearly using the word in a technical context as per the dictionary definition of the word. Anyone who thinks that is offensive is the true problem in my opinion.
That is what I believe as well. I am not that preoccupied with races to make such associations. In all fairness, I still have no clue what "blacklist" has to do with races or slavery, even after having been "shown" this association, because it makes no sense given the context.
There might be people out there who genuinely do not know what the term means in the context of CS/IT, but then instead of assuming that everyone using the term is racist, they should try to figure out the actual meaning.
Killing a child or a parent in the context of computer science is something completely different than... actually killing a child or a parent. :) I can imagine "just kill the child" being misinterpreted, but that can only be the case if someone takes it out of context. Once the context is known, there should be no confusion or mystery.
No, they are very much aware of the context. Most of these people are just bullies, who have found a new way to mask their toxic behavior in the name of a good cause.
I have seen bots, too. I remember there was a bot that sent pull requests to over 1000 projects if I remember correctly. All the pull requests involved changing words only, such as "blacklist" to "blocklist" or whatever. You know what is funny? Many of them were merged.
I have seen and listened to a lot of race-conscious content over the last few years. As a white man, I can't say I've taken any of it as a personal attack. I'd be happy to talk more about this out of thread.
I didn't notice them providing any statistics in regards to the racial issues. All I noticed was anecdotal evidence and an incredibly biased account of a single police encounter that happened back in 2014. They are using one guys story and a single incident involving police in order to talk about the negatives it had on other races. These are bold claims with little backing given.
This is why I don't like when podcasts like this try and tackle these issues. Because they end up being incredibly biased and one-sided. They didn't provide the whole story on the police incident, nor did they provide any other points of views or statistic on the racial issues they mentioned.
I like hearing well-researched and articulated pieces about racial inequality. What I don't like is hearing a biased opinion/anecdote filled podcast episode about it.
It seems every Podcast I listen to now always has some weird need to make it political. This never used to be the case even just a couple years ago. Now we even see sporting programs taking sides in politics and it just seems so unnecessary.
I often spend too much time deep into the weeds on these kinds of topics much like I am now. Sometimes I just want to consume some media without politics being involved. However it rarely seems like I am able to anymore. Even TV shows I watch now are starting to feel ruined and lack the good script writing they used to in favour of shoehorning whatever current PC thing is trending.
The problem with this line of thinking is that everything is political. If they had chosen not to address the possible racial implications, other people who felt strongly about those may have felt that the negative social impact that they perceive was being deliberately ignored, and they would have been right to the same extent that you are.
It is similar to the choice of making or not making global warming a game mechanic in the Civilization series of games: either option will be seen as "political" by some people and "apolitical" by others. It's a distinction without a difference.
Not saying something is not inherently less political than talking about it.
Note: I have no idea or even opinion about the actual political implications of skyways. Perhaps they are a real problem, perhaps they are a fringe idea like opposition to the word "blacklist" (a word which existed in the English language since Prince John).
But that feeling of walking on eggshells is more related to a surveillance state coming from social media.
More explanatory than I could be: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-yo...
We see people losing their jobs simply for sharing a more conservative view on Twitter. I've seen cases of actors losing jobs for sharing an edgy conservative meme, but than someone sharing almost the identical meme but liberal sided being completely fine.
Nowadays it seems like even things like jobs can simply be determined by how outraged a group of random people feel. Actors lose jobs because people who probably don't even watch the show get upset by a single tweet they made.
The world is starting to not make sense to me and just seems so illogical lately. No matter how factual and objective something is that you say, if it doesn't align with the current politically correct fad people will try to cancel you. People who make perfectly valid and factual claims get shut down by people who just simply call them a "racist" and say "you just don't get it". Instead of trying to help them understand and trying to use facts to logically debate someone they react with emotion and outrage. And then they get dogpilled into submission.
I see why it's hard to find people opposing the current PC culture. As soon as anyone does they get called some "ism" and get cancelled.
It’s a purity cult.
I've even seen sections of TikToks with people pretty clearly faking mental disorders for attention. It's honestly kinda sad. I guess I am kinda glad I just missed the explosion of social media in school. I'm sure social media just creates so many more issues in young adults. And the weird things you do when you're young will forever be stored somewhere online.
Eggshells?
If you're with someone you know or you don't know and you make a perceived or actual faux pas in their eyes.
Say ..... "sorry" .... "I didn't know that. Tell me more".
How hard is that?
I try to be pretty inclusive, but I'm nowhere near perfect and you know what, when I might have got it wrong this is what I do. And I'm not special for doing so. It's called interacting like a normal human being with another human being.
And you know what, it opens the space for understanding and debate and the chance to reject if you really believe it is wrong.
And as for you unfollowing podcasts because of mentions of priviedge and so forth ... well ... I wonder why that would be recently. Do you unfollow all topics which make you uncomfortable? Do you complain about cancel culture and then cancel podcasts you don't like?
I'm going to be harsh here because your post is very representative of many I see so maybe it needs to be said.
You feeling like you're being attacked everywhere you go is your problem, not those you think who are doing the attacking.
Change the language, change the outcome, came the activists of the 90s and 2000's. This stuff somehow spilled out of literary theory in academia and started becoming a political force for understanding power dynamics. You can get a taste below, where the commenter is comparing black and white concepts, and how we view one as good and another as bad.
Do these folks (like the commenter below) have a point? Yes, sure. But submit your point to the marketplace of ideas instead of trying to force people's hands through censorship. Not everyone has to buy social constructivism. We're allowed to believe that racism has material and economic causes, and changing it has minimally to do with language. So no, don't make me change my git default branch or the way I talk.
Nobody can know for sure, but I suspect if Foucault were still alive, he'd likely be rather critical of a lot of contemporary social justice activism.
But as you say the whole thing is a giant metanarrative times ten, and these language police types are running over everyone who gets in their way. It's making so many people nervous, I think it has a shelf life. What scares me more is the open embrace of postmodern social theory by corporate America. That will lead to a backlash that makes me even more nervous.
> it trivializes all this historic pain to some inane game of word association
I think addressing one issue does not 'trivialise' everything else. It can be horribly overstated but changing small fry can help provide momentum to change something more significant.
> It's complete bullshit,
It is obviously associating racism with something not intentionally racist. But does it not strike to you at all problematic, at the moment, that 'black' is a synonym of 'bad' and 'white' of 'good'? Does it not occur to you that it might improve our language to change that? Given changing a metaphor 'black' into a meaning 'block' doesn't seem to me a generally bad idea.
I understand the logic of 'that's just what languages is.' But language changes when people use it differently. It seems to me very reasonable to say let's use this language a little bit less unfortunately.
I'm not suggesting this is 100% the same but re: language change. I remember that time not too many years ago when people would argue that referring to a 'man' or 'him' at work was non-gendered. And those women complaining that we only talked about business men were just being unreasonable. I'm sure there are still places like that but I'm very glad that my co's & clients changed.
Honestly, lately I feel like the opposite is the case. Everywhere I go anywhere online all I see is white people being shit on. I see incredibly racist things being said about white people everywhere online and there are zero consequences for it. In fact they often get praised for it. So no, I think what you're saying is far from being true.
The people who are looking at a word like "blacklist" and thinking it in a negative racial way are the ones that are the problem. They are the ones grasping at straws trying to find things to be offended by. It's a choice people make and it's only offensive because someone chooses to be offended by the word. You have to remember when being offended by words like this it means ignoring the context.
It's just silly is what it is. Language policing is absolutely insane.
It's not just whites but east asians, jews as well. The whole idea derives from the notion that its okay to be racist if its upwards. People associate those groups as being affluent and automatically people think its okay to "punch up".
There are certain groups that we are not supposed to "punch down". There is a rise in anti-semitism, anti-asian, anti-white imho because wealth gap is increasing and people who are on the bottom tend to be not of those groups so they feel its justified and its okay to be racist not even being conscious of their actions and thoughts.
Like many Koreans during the LA riots knew exactly who were looting their stores but its forbidden and "racist" just like the victims of a subset of BLM rioters who decided to loot businesses that can't mention the demographic despite video footage evidence, anecdotes and that overwhelming group behind the protests.
It's getting ridiculous like when I was playing Battlefield and was permanently banned for saying "niggardly use of ammo packs" as the person was not cooperating and refusing to drop ammos.
The whole thing about master branch, master bedroom also has turned North America into a laughing stock. I can't wait to leave this puritannical shithole.
As a non-native english speaker, if I didn't look up the word in dictionary, I would likely assume it was a derivative of that other word. I can see how that would lead to a ban if moderator didn't bother checking, especially if they are moderating 13 year olds mostly.
There is even research showing how in many different situations Asians actually have many more cases of hate crimes against them compared to black and Hispanic:
> In general, hate crimes are most likely targeting young adults at ages 18–34, male, and local residents in all three groups. Asian American victims however, have a higher chance than African Americans and Hispanics to be victimized in places where they are not local residents (24% vs. 16.8% for African Americans and 16.3% for Hispanics). Comparing with Black and Hispanic victims, Asian Americans also have relatively higher chance to be victimized by non-White offenders (25.5% vs. 1.0% for African Americans and 18.9% for Hispanics).
> With regard to the incident characteristics, Asian Americans have higher risk to be persecuted by strangers (39.2% vs. 30.7% for African Americans and 30.1% for Hispanics), are less likely to be offended in their residence (23.7% vs. 34.4% for African Americans and 29.5% for Hispanics), and are more likely to be targeted at school/college (17% vs. 8.9% for African Americans and 11.2% for Hispanics). The variables of time, weapon use, injury, and substance show similar patterns for the three groups.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790522/
I personally do not think movements like BLM are progress inducing at all. In fact I think they do the opposite. I think movements like BLM put the blame on things like white people and police. It's easy for a politician to use the police as a scape-goat and reap in the votes for being a big BLM supporter. But talk doesn't mean anything. I have yet to see many politicians actually do anything to address some of the root causes of problems such nearly 3/4 of black babies being born to an unmarried mother (https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/9429/chad_sc...).
And there is a lot of research showing how huge the single-parent factor is on crime rates:
> States with a lower percentage of single-parent families, on average, will have lower rates of juvenile crime. State-by-state analysis indicates that, in general, a 10 percent increase in the number of children living in single-parent homes (including divorces) accompanies a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.
Source: https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/the-real-r...
I find it wild how the blame will be put on police over-policing areas rather than the root of the problem which is the higher rates of crime in these areas due to factors like the one above.
Overall it seems like America (and some of Canada) is becoming super sensitive and easily offended. It makes it hard for anyone to ever bring up the serious problems affecting different communities. This data isn't racist, the same effects are seen across racial groups including white people. And this is exactly why I hate seeing the weird anti-white, anti-jew, anti-asian wars that are going on. Because the reality is that this is a problem that can affect anyone who ends up in these kinds of situations.
I'd love to see a politician who focused on the roots of problems rather then focusing on making the loud mouth Twitter users happy. It's sad that often times even just mentioning these kinds of stats would be considered a conservative view and probably would end up being called insults and some Twitter users trying to cancel you.
First, racism is not the olympics. Nobody wins. Even when its people "punching up". However, it is quickly becoming acceptable.
Take a look at Western Europe and the the level of anti-semitism from the Muslim, Arab and some local community. It's disgusting. You'd think that Europe would have rooted this shit out after WW2 but that isn't the case. Especially in France, people who lived there for generations are moving to Israel and other countries. When I look at that I think of the struggles of Asian Americans and other groups that haven't gotten as much attention because it doesn't fit the traditional racism.
This forced diversity and "punching up" movement like BLM and ACAB are only increasing animosity towards those represented groups. Many employers who used to hire people from the ghetto can't do it anymore because they've been A) looted B) minimum wage is forcefully raised to unsustainable levels C) refreshed animosity towards those groups as a result of the violence witnessed or experience
Lot of African Americans wonder where this racial tension comes from the Asian & other community are either willfully ignorant or incapable of accepting reality-its not racist to assume a a certain patron will steal or commit violence when the overwhelming demographic is responsible for it. It's called risk management similar to how you don't venture beyond a certain street in some American cities or walk into a favela in Brazil. So already trust was very low towards African Americans and other similar groups, now after BLM, its at an all time low. In fact, it has hurt progress. It's going to be hard for businesses damaged by the abuse of trust from those demographics to ever trust them again and it's going to lead to more underserved ghettos, more poverty, less jobs. This sucks for honest folks of those community who see their opportunities ruined because the uneducated ones suddenly were empowered by an asinine political movement.
People keep using poverty, intergenerational trauma due to slavery but these are just fucking excuses. Asian Americans have gone through all of those things back home from the feudal corrupt agricultural lordship of that only ended around 19th century (but some countries still have militant authoritarian power forcing people in squalor conditions in factories making goods for the West), regional war and poverty. Yet these hardships were never allowed to be used as an excuse to break bad, blame other race groups, and other external factors and NEITHER do successful African Americans.
In fact Charles Barkley put it so eloquently
"We as black people are never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other black people. When you are black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people,"
"For some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you're not a thug or an idiot, you're not black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligent, and don't break the law, you're not a good black person. It's a dirty, dark secret in the black community.
"There are a lot of black people who are unintelligent, who don't have success. It's best to knock a successful black person down because they're intelligent, they speak well, they do well in school, and they're successful. It's just typical BS that goes on when you're black, man."I think the Malcolm X quote is a very powerful one that accurately represents what is currently going on. I'll quote a snippet of it here but I think the full paragraph is interesting to read:
> “The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal. In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. The only people living in the past who think in terms of I’m a Democrat or Republican, is the American Negro. He’s the one that runs around bragging about party affiliation. He’s the one that sticks to the Democrat or sticks to the Republican. But white people are divided into two groups, liberals and conservative. The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn. The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8869214-the-white-liberal-i...
His quote so accurately describes what is currently happening it's kinda disturbing. I find it hilarious how a well educated and successful black person warns of exactly this kind of thing and yet we still see it happening. We see businesses, liberal politicians, and liberal supporters who spew BLM love everywhere they go and act like such huge supporters of BLM. Yet when Obama was president very little was ever done to help these black communities. Some even argue Trump's policy changes did more to help black people than Obama's changes did. But no liberal would consider that as it doesn't fit the narrative.
It's easy for a politician to make big talk, but when they ignore the stats and the root cause of the problem then it really is just talk and it's useless.
People think that by pointing out things like we have mentioned that we are racist. But in reality we are just able to see the factual/statistics that demonstrate the real issues. And we can see how the politicians and companies utilize racial justice to increase their wealth and power. I personally would love to see all races treated equally, but current BLM movements have not shown any factual progress and have only shown further negative effects such as more incidents of hate crimes.
What people often don't realize is that calling something a ghetto or low income is not racist. Just because one particular area happens to be made up mostly one particular race doesn't make it racist to address that it is a problem. People like to act like police are the problem and that black people are being arrested in higher numbers because of racist police. When in reality black people are often in low income areas and low income areas are well researched to have higher levels of crime. Thus of course there are more arrests in such areas. But I don't know why people need to blame it on race. Why can people not identify that the 1% bleed everybody dry, and particularly take advantage of the poor. Why can we not fight against the root of the problem, why does it always have to be this race against that race?
I just find society now so disturbing with how someone can shit on one race in order to pump up another race and that somehow makes them gain more power/wealth. Someone should not benefit from being racist, yet that is exactly what is happening. People should benefit from actually making change and addressing the real problems.
It's funny because you see people like Jordan Peterson get called and "alt-right nazi" yet I have never seen a video of someone actually making a valid rebuttal to anything he has said. Just listening to videos of him talk you can tell he has a pretty high intelligence level and knows very well what he is talking about. I find in today's society when someone makes valid and factual statements it has become common to just dismiss them by calling them something rather than trying to debate/discuss what they said. Nobody is open to addressing the actual concerns and would rather do hand waving and police people from saying certain words. It's only free speech when it's for a woke liberal movement nowadays.
One day maybe sanity will come back, but I can't see that happening for awhile. It makes me curious if there are any countries that do have some more sanity and operate on a more statistical based playing field rather than an emotional based one.
I will have to read/watch more documentaries on Malcom X. It's sad that many African American youth have abandoned the warnings of MLK to not descend into violence and break bad because he knew that would be used as tools for oppression.
Also I don't disagree with BLM in it's entirety I do think it started out of good faith but its evolved into something totally unbecoming.
They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn. The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative.
The virtue signaling industrial complex in North America is getting insane in North America. It is big business and in fact its destroying and moving us away from progress.
I think that one day where everything returns to normal is a distant future and its better off living in another country where they don't tolerate the vilification of critical thinkers.
It's just not worth it for me to engage like that anymore. How about bringing a discussion to what I said rather than asking for random proof of what I said. Look literally anywhere on the internet and you'll find it pretty easily.
Hell the AP News will capitalize Black but not White: https://apnews.com/article/7e36c00c5af0436abc09e051261fff1f
Stuff like that is just one of hundreds of examples. That article is what I'd consider more of a "casual racism" whereas I also see a lot more direct racism as well.
I'd personally rather be in a world where someone doesn't feel a need to specify someone's race before everything. People will add in race when it has no relevance or facts behind it.
I am sure you have heard the phrase "privileged white male" before. I can't even count on both my hands how many times I've been told that. And I'll be told that without the person even knowing my level of privilege, my gender, or my race. When you oppose the current politically correct fad you'll be called racist and people will assume your gender and race and use it as a derogatory/racist statement. It will be used to dismiss and invalidate an opinion.
For me personally my test is often pretty simple. If someone tries to dismiss an opinion by calling someone a "privileged white male" how would that be any better than dismissing someone's opinion for being black? To me they both are racist and just as bad in my mind. Neither is acceptable. Yet in todays society we know which one would be acceptable. As long as it's shitting on a white person or a male you're good to go.
It would depend on the content and context of the opinion itself, no? Why not just ask the dismissing person why they say that? We’ve come to the point where we generalize and characterize instead of understanding, then simply disagreeing.
> Yet in today’s society we know which one would be acceptable. As long as it’s shitting on a white person or a male you’re good to go.
White men are getting shat on but still represent or control nearly all economic and political interests (at least in U.S. and it’s empire). I’m really curious to why you feel this way? It’s not like women and Black people have been getting a pass in exchange. I just think social media has made it easier for white men to be (or feel like) targets of vitriolic, but protected speech. Welcome to the club.
From my perspective, it seems in finance, real estate and politics, going along with the “privileged white male” perception (even if an untrue of the person in question) still seems like the best way to take advantage of markets and institutions. And I suspect that’s why, given a megaphone and platform, everyone else is piling on.
You actually answered this question yourself with your next paragraph :). Currently being racist towards white males gives businesses, influencers, and politicians more power. And I fundamentally disagree with this notion. I do not think shitting on particular groups of people should make someone excel. I think it should show what kind of negative person they are and they should lose not gain.
Some of my problem stems from the fact that these phrases are used to dismiss peoples opinions. I am far from being conservative, and also wouldn't consider myself liberal. I hold many views that fall under both spectrums. Some may even be considered more radical on both ends.
If I made a conservative sided comment online how do you think it would fair? Now if I made a liberal based comment how do you think that would fair in comparison? I think that the liberal ideology would gain me woke points and give me praise. Whereas that conservative view would get shat on, may be called some "ism", and then likely also would be called a "white privileged male". This would of course be used to dismiss the opinion/fact despite how true or accurate it may be. It is also making assumptions on race and gender simply based on a single opinion on a topic.
My main issue is that this kind of thinking creates a divide. It's hard to have a conversation on many websites because people hurl insults and don't care to actually have a constructive conversation. I try and come into a conversation being open-minded. The problem I have faced lately is that I feel like I have been becoming more and more jaded and against the other "side". I really dislike this and have been working to try and avoid doing that. But everytime I hear these kind of rude comments it further affirms my believe while also preventing me from hearing what intelligent people on that "side" actually have to say.
For example, people quite violently oppose Trump and Trump supporters. What doesn't make sense to me is why people would rather attack the group of people instead of trying to share their opinion. If there opinion is based on facts/research/science you'd think they would want to engage with the other side and try and get more people to share their opinion. But instead social media and society lately discourages this. It always has to be them versus us. There is no middle ground. Hell people get called "alt-right" and "nazis" for some pretty tame conservative views. I personally think calling someone a "nazi" is very extreme, yet the word gets thrown around like it means nothing. As a side note I find it quite ironic that these same people using these extreme words also will try to police what words others can use that they deem "offensive".
FWIW I just see shitting on white men as some kind of catharsis for women and people of color. There is a lot more deep pain that needs to be expressed before any real racial healing. Ironically, to your point it may have the opposite of intended effect, but I don't think repressing the emotions that come with unpacking Western society's history of racism is a productive move either.
> FWIW I just see shitting on white men as some kind of catharsis for women and people of color.
What's funny is that half the time I hear it, it's a white male shitting on white males. I'll hear a white male podcast host complaining about white males. I often feel like it's less about people doing it to feel better about themselves, it seems more like they are doing it to "look good". Kinda like giving themselves a pat on the back for saying a "woke" line. Or I'll see people like A-list actors shitting on white males despite them being an incredibly privileged individual.
And now we even see females being given political position because of their gender and not necessarily their merit. Our Prime Minister in Canada when he got elected made the cabinet 50/50 male-female. The problem I'm starting to see with this kind of stereotyping is that it is starting to put gender over things like ability.
When a politicians first sentence about why they put someone in a position is "because they were x gender or y race" rather than "Because they had xyz skills and were the most qualified" it points to a problem in my books. In my area we had fire departments that had lower requirements for females than males. However the requirements indicate they are what a firefighter requires to be able to successfully meet the standards of the job and keep themselves, their coworkers, and the public safe. So it seems silly when the that "minimum" to get the job done suddenly gets lowered for a group. It's the same job, but one group doesn't have to meet the same standard? Luckily now I have seen these requirements have shifted to use new testing methodologies that better tests candidates against job requirements and is equal for all genders and ages. I got on a bit of a tangent with this, but my overall point is that because of these norms being pushed by the media often-times the politics and PR becomes more important than having the skills required. This is just one side-effect of many that is caused by this kind of weird PC culture that has been going on.
Context matters... if you are in the position of privilege and saying things that you can only say because of your position. Then I can see why some people would dismiss it.
The difference is: if you try to dismiss someone in a minority position for saying things that would be okay to say in a privileged position. Then you are just doubling down on that privilege.
This isn't about "white privilege" vs "black privilege" this about privilege in general. Really empathy is the answer and understanding where they are coming from will help you not inadvertently offend them.
Whenever my opinion is dismissed using my race/gender/or perceived privilege it instantly creates divide. It naturally is going to make me feel more correct in my views and more correct avoiding those kinds of people. This is exactly why we see such a huge divide now in America. People are unable to discuss stuff. And this is also probably partially due to the fact that often times people don't actually have any stats to back up what they think. Often times people are just following trends now and copying what their favourite woke influencer does. I find little people I engage with actually grasp what they are talking about and just regurgitate the same lines over and over.
I've got to the point where I barely ever comment on any political sounding reddit post because I know the conversation is going to go nowhere and be filled with name-calling. And I hate that I feel like this. I want to be able to converse with people and try and understand their point of view. But unfortunately I just feel constantly attacked.
Hell I mod a couple subs over there. If I make a comment that sounds conservative leaning upset banned users will go post it on subs I mod on acting like I am a "racist mod". Now I have to delete my reddit history often and use alts a lot more. Nowadays you can barely say anything without offending someone.
I figured that would be the feel of the objection.
Maybe I should be grateful as a white person that that's not the world I find myself in. Happy to pick my variable names.
I can't help but feel that the antagonism here is very similar to the antagonism I mentioned about Gendered language. The anger seemed mostly caused by being surprised by being asked to think about something.
Just because you think and associate something with a negative racial implication when you see a word doesn't mean others are. I personally am able to look at a word and understand the context surrounding the word. I'm able to think about that word and know that calling my git branch a "master" doesn't mean that I am a slave driver and or that I agree with it. I am able to think on my own.
We also only get change requests for the associations that point in one direction.
It's called "in the black" when you're making a profit. Is anyone trying to get accountants to stop calling it that?
Here are some synonyms my thesaurus lists for "white": blanched, bleached, frosted, pasty, achromatic, bloodless, chalky and ghastly. "White noise" is sound without meaning. "White flag" means to surrender. "White label" means you're too cheap for the name brand.
If it's a problem then it's all a problem.
Or, if we're going to change something, we could stop calling people "white" and "black". Where do I submit the pull request for that?
Unfortunately in todays society people policing words only pretend to care to get their woke bonus points. If it's not a current trending word of the day to hate then it doesn't get any attention.
I find the word policing hilarious because like your example illustrate, there is no logic to the hatred.
In this thread someone is trying to justify not liking the word "blacklist". By that logic "black market" should also be a bad word to use. Yet nobody uses the word "white market", but they do use the word "grey market". So what word here is bad? Is using "black market" bad? Then why would "grey market" be okay? It wouldn't make sense. It means they are for some reason associating black with the race, yet are associating grey with a colour. Logically that doesn't make sense.
Yet if "white market" was a thing I bet there would be trouble. Most scary things in horror movies use darkness to set the mood. A scary creature that is pretty much all black like the Slenderman would not look scary if they were almost all white. To us humans we associate different colours with different things. We also use these words as synonyms for different things.
Like you indicate, white is also used for "negative" things as well.
Overall I just can't follow along with the word policing culture. There is no way someone is going to convince me it is "correct" when it logically and consistently doesn't make sense. My mind can't understand why blackmarket would not be offensive but blacklist would.
Please be a bit more careful. Please don't assume you know what or how much I'm thinking.
I think the situation isn't as binary as you seem to be presenting it. The context of the word is a metaphor. The metaphor is commonly used for 'good versus bad'. This being a common metaphor in western language might not be helpful to some people. It's not difficult to be more explicit or to use a different metaphor.
> you are the one who needs to think about ... I am able to think on my own.
:) You know the classic idea: "I know I'm right, therefore you are either less intelligent or haven't thought hard enough!"?
You know how easy that is to think and why our brain gets us to think that way?
What you are doing is using an old historical definition for a word that was used in a different context.
A word I use is meaningless if you exclude the other words around it. You exclude the context in order to feel offended by the word.
And you're using your subconscious racial prejudice to look at a word and feel offended by it. When I look at blacklist I think of the colour black and how the colour is darker. Darkness is commonly a negative thing. Thus if I don't want something I put it on a blacklist. Where as the colour white is the brightest option and is something normally associated with positive.
Do you complain when a movie uses darkness to create a scary atmosphere? Would a Slenderman that is white be as scary as a Slenderman that is black to you? No. Because colour is used to trigger different emotional and psychological responses. But this has nothing to do with race. Nowhere did I need to mention or think about race here.
You're choosing to associate a word with a negative when others who don't have these kinds of racial prejudices are able to look at the words context and instantly understand what it means without ever thinking about a race.
Trust me, your word policing is not going to fix a problem with racism. All it does is reveal how you feel when you see a word.
When I see blacklist I'm not thinking about race. When you see blacklist you are. To me that indicates a racist ideology.
Do you feel using the phrase "black market" is wrong? If so then what about "grey market"? "White market" isn't a word that is used so there is no opposing "positive" colour to "black market". So is the phrase still bad to you?
If somehow black market is okay with you then your logic against blacklist makes no sense. And if black market is not okay with you then it also makes no sense logically because grey market is not based on a race.
Interesting how you associate these words with race yet their origins don't relate to race at all but instead a colour.
That said, if you're white in China/India/Kenya/etc... 100% there is a heap of racism directed at you and I feel for you
When someone calls me these names without even knowing my race, gender, or status it's pretty rude. Is it going to make me agree with them more? Is it going to make me support any of their causes more? Nope. It's going to increase my dislike for that "side". And if you get hammered with that enough it is going to create hate.
In my opinion I think the current woke landscape is actually creating more racism. I think it is counter-productive.
Does someone who is vegan yelling and screaming blocking you from getting a burger make you want to join their side? Or would it make you want further hate them and want to oppose them? Would a vegan sitting down and having a no namecalling conversation with you be more effective? I would think so. This is the exact same concept.
Also just because someone is a white male for example absolutely does not imply their status. I think that dismisses how much work someone may have put into life to get to where they are. That person doesn't know how hard they worked to get where they may or may not be, yet they are making that assumption.
If you view their reply as not productive and they view your statement as not productive... then maybe stop having that discussion until you can both bring more empathy to the table.
Facts don't always tell a story or explain the "why". Often times you have to form an opinion based on the facts and that is what you're bringing to the table when discussing stuff. I don't see why I need to explain this concept on a site like this.
Facts actually always tell the story and the “why” is more facts as well.
People also create factually incorrect opinions such as implying police are racist towards black people because they are arrested more. This is them deriving an opinion from a fact about incarcerations. Except the causation is already present, which is that lower income areas simply commit more crimes.
Now I'm not trying to argue about whether you think those facts are correct or not, but I'm using it to illustrate a point. A fact can also be wrong. Maybe the fact was derived from bad research. Opinions and facts can go hand and hand together. I don't know why you're trying to be so binary about it.
I also don't understand how this conversation is productive or is useful in anyway? It seems like we are debating meaningless semantics rather than the heart of the issue.
I'll take your bait though, see how hard you believe these falsehoods.
Yeah, Police in the US (in some states at least) are racist, now I don't mean individuals necessarily, though I'm sure some are, but institutional (dare I say systemic) racism exists in the system. Incarceration rates are a good correlative bit of evidence, arrest rates, court dismissals for whites at a higher rate than blacks... like take your pick. No evidence (or fact) supports your position at all. Happy for your to bring the data to prove me wrong here.
You can hide behind economics if you like and try to argue "poor people commit more crime" - but then how do you explain incarceration rates of blacks given there are more poor white people than poor black people in the US?
You haven't illustrated any point. Just that you have opinions, with little fact, and seem triggered by people referencing white male privilege.
It makes sense for two reasons.
The first is that a huge amount of the "anti-white racism" is directed by "white people" against others nominally in the same group, implying that they aren't actually in the same social group and correspondingly that the targets don't have a majority. As evidence of this, notice that people can be canceled over petty nonsense, e.g. Gina Carano. How could this happen if there was actually a social majority which should nominally be exerting pressure in the opposite direction and winning?
The second is that there are plenty of contexts where the majority doesn't even exist on paper, e.g. only 40% of California is "white" so a "white person" who lives in California is a minority. That state is also the place where a disproportionate amount of the attacks happen. And the same is true of many major US cities, e.g. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad-Based_Black_Economic_Emp...
That's stage-2. I.e. after the "minority" becomes the "majority". Then different excuses and "historic" racism is used to justify persecution against a minority.
> it is not just not intentionally racist -- there is no way any normal person would construe the term 'blacklist' as racist. it is as logically coherent as banning 'black pudding' for racism. it is purely an arbitrary exercise in power, making others submit to show them that they must.
Exactly this. Addressing one issue does not trivialise everything else. 'Addressing' something that isn't actually one of the issues at all[0] trivialises everything else.
0: And there are plenty of actual issues to pick from!
Edit: HN seems to be bugging out, so reattaching reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26219976 here. Edit again: Parent seems to be back at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26220021 - id change on edit? shrug.
Really? Regardless of what you think about racism, I don't want to be funny isn't it obvious that one is a metaphor and one isn't?
This is not a racism question, but would you think 'Concrete' in 'ConcreteList' is functionally the same as in 'Concrete road'?
I can't imagine how a blacklist is the colour black. Blood sausage is. Except the Irish version I know. Which is called white pudding.
The inverse solution to this stop calling people with darker skin "Black"?
I kind of agree with what you're saying, but also it isn't true:
- Blacktie
- Black friday
- Blacktop
- Back in black
- Orange is the new black
- Men in black
All of those use black in a positive connotation. In my head black/white list has always been a metaphor for light/no light. As in black list can't see, white list can.
In asian Culture white is often associated with the colour of ghosts / the dead... So it'd get awkward if we keep modifying language to suit cultural references especially as English is a global language and while slavery was(is) a global problem it persists only really in the US as a current popular cultural issue.
In replying to you I've convinced myself at least the solution here can't possibly be to change all of the possible references of black to something else... it verges on new speak.
It's not just a language thing. It's an extremely deeply rooted symbolic system. You can't arbitrarily change it, and even if you did... what improvement does shifting the symbols around yield ? That's just increasing the noise to signal ratio.
Even then, isn't the real problematic part assigning elementary colours to skin tones ? Can't you just try to change that instead of contorting the deepest part of a culture on a Procustean bed ?
Black is associated with the night and darkness and death in many cultures. Fear of the darkness is common to all humans.
No. That's how it's always been in European culture and it doesn't have much to do with race. It's probably true of many other cultures as well, although I can't say for sure.
Your point is completely correct. As is the other comment here at about night and day. The lists are frequent. And not unique to European cultures.
But it's also not reasonable to say that in our particular culture, meaning as a political and social context.
Because I'm trying to make a bigger point than just race, I could imagine reading a similar things to what you're writing back in the late-C20 saying that 'Man' has been nongendered for centuries and in many cultures and in all kinds of language. Hi wouldn't disagree.
But then the next step: so women shouldn't have been worried about companies wanting to hire businessmen. That just doesn't seem ok.
So I definitely think that 'Black equals bad, white equals good' Has all kinds of historical significance, non racist links, and would not have been considered weird until very recently. But in our context I'm not offended that it would be something we find alternatives for.
Yes, it does. On my Twitter I have "racism" and "race" including many other trendy SJW keywords blocked. The reason is I simply don't have the time and energy to tend to every single accusation of racism or whatever-isms is out there. And most these accusations have nothing to do with racism. It's just some bully has found a new target to harass.
Consider why white moves first in chess. They literally did this two years ago: https://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-and-giri-campaign-for-...
Anyway, in many religions the light illuminates things while darkness is the absence of light. So it’s not just about people’s race...
On the other hand, white needs 6.5 less points to win (komi). Does it make go racist?
Oh I don’t know about that. The “religious left” of today looks, acts, and smells a lot like the religious right of the ‘80’s to me. It’s the same instinct that’s being leveraged in people, just righteousness wrapped in a polka-dot cloth rather than a plaid one. Institutions clearly promote “right-thinking” whether it’s banning the use of words, doing mandatory internal critical race theory sessions, coordinated deplatforming, and let’s not even get started on the soft sciences in schooling and the state of what’s called “news”. The other day I skimmed a headline about a librarian burning their copies of books by Trump and Rush Limbaugh. In some ways the sheer weight of secular institutional support for today’s self-righteousness makes the American church of the eighties look like amateur hour.
I don’t doubt these hall monitors think they’re doing the “right thing” or being a “good person”. But really they’re only exploiting people for their own benefit.
Maybe we should develop a central spamlist.
If I'm going to spend my energy on something it seems like there's bigger things to tackle than pushing back against branch renames.
As someone not a U.S. citizen, the impact of PC is ridiculously huge. I know slavery and how bad it is. It appeared in my culture, and it is still there in some form too. However, the ENGLISH word "master" means not much to me. It is just a multi-purpose symbol, like many other words. As the meaning being a main branch, why bothering the renaming?
You claim that you are just spending your energy on something else, but in reality you are giving up the right to use your own language and to maintain the definition the meaning of a well-understood and frequently-used word.
That is why I just ignore or reject such PRs. I do not believe that enabling it is a good idea. It is not my job to improve their context-awareness either.
Language and culture generally moves in one direction.
Hoping to put the genie back in the bottle on "blacklist" and "master" is like wishing you could go back to the 90's when guys in high school would casually toss out "fag" in relation to each other.
You can disagree, and dig your heels in, and pitch a hissy fit, but the world and society is moving on and leaving you behind.
Git 'master' branch derangement is another example of this BS.
Pretty sure that'd just 'offend' (wannabe representatives of) Native Americans instead.
If a process is directly commanding and telling another process what to do I don't see how calling it a master is wrong? It is one of it's definitions.
What would you think if the tool was called "concentration camp executioner"?
You might think I'm making an extreme example to make a point, and I am - you would have a viscerally emotional reaction and recognize that the accuracy of a word does not offset the negative connotations associated with it.
I use the word "gypped" in my vocabulary. It never occurred to me that it is a derogatory term towards gypsies. Until very recently, "jewed" was a perfectly appropriate term to use in professional contexts with the same meaning.
The definition of a word is not relevant to the reasons why people are asking for terms like master/slave to exit our ubiquitous technical vocabulary.
Your example doesn't make sense. Why would a tool be called that? You're describing a specific tragic event in event where as a monkey is.... a monkey....
Just stop. Your logic makes zero sense. Do not try and compare an animal to a historically tragic event to justify word policing. That is absolutely insane and is incredibly disrespectful. Your use of tragedies to justify your woke word policing is quite frankly disgusting.
The fact that you can't explain how it makes sense without comparing it to some random tragedy is no better than the people who call everyone with a conservative view a "nazi". Just knock it off.
Chaos monkey sounds completely fine and I can't see how any sane non-racist person would associate that with a black person. If that is what you are doing, I think you need to do some self-reflection on what that says about your own subconscious racist biases.
deanCommie was trying to get you to see that SLAVERY was also a historically tragic event that people are reminded of when they see terminology like master/slave.
> Chaos monkey sounds completely fine and I can't see how any sane non-racist person would associate that with a black person.
They weren't trying to say that. This whole discussion is master/slave. This is precisely the point - chaos monkey is a fine neutral term that describes what is needed without any negative connotations. "Concentration camp guard" isn't.
Primary/replica is a fine neutral term. "Master/slave" aren't.
Honestly, your outrage about the comparison to concentration camps exactly proves the point that language matters regardless of intent.
I feel like this about many attempts to make language politically correct, but I really do wonder, was there actually anyone out there sitting there being offended by this usage of those words before someone told them they should be?
Like was there actually someone sitting there, using an app, seen the term blacklist and immediately started thinking it was an insult to them?
My belief is absolutely not. It comes from an ideology that ascribes simple moralistic explanations to things. “This word has man in it so it must mean it excludes women”. “The word ‘master’ reminds people of slavery”, etc.
Good luck speaking out “publicly” about it in the modern corporate environment. You have to not just accept it as true but actively parrot its talking points. Everyone has to be a believer. That’s how the whole thing works.
There are actual race issues genuinely affecting people every day. Making a big deal out of what are essentially non-issues i'd be willing to bet 99% of people never think about or genuinely care about is just going to make the average person roll their eyes and not bother caring.
Which again, is counterproductive. If you want the average person to care about the actual systemic issues, violence and actual racial oppression, forcing them to adjust their language and take time to address issues like the gp's comment is not the way to do it.
Policing every word people say and making them feel guilty for using the wrong ones will not make them care, if anything it's going to make people who are otherwise neutral, who would maybe care, turn hostile.
It pushes people to extremes and leads to places like 8chan or Parler, where people take their language to utter extremes and the opposite extreme where people are finding offense in nearly every little thing.
Both are unreasonable.
I want to think I personally wouldn’t be insecure enough to be concerned by something like that, but I have to agree that some might feel uncomfortable even if the intent behind that term was benign.
Whether getting rid of that term entirely is worth it or not is another question (how far should we go? do we spend human-months rewriting all Git histories to replace this term with an alternative currently in fashion? what if it changes again? etc.), but just stopping using it in new codebases might be relatively low-effort.
I'll give you a concrete example from the world of finance. In options there are two main forms of exercise. You can have options which can be exercised at expiry and options that can be exercised at any point.[1] When the economist Paul Samuelson started to work on Wall street he was told that he would never truly be able to understand options because he was American and therefore the maths would be too complicated for his mind[2]. So when he came up with the first pricing model that could handle warrants that exercise at any point he named the simple case (at expiry) "European" and the complex case "American" as a dig at his detractors. For that reason to this day we have European and American styles of option exercise.[3]
[1]You can also have options that can be exercised on a given set of dates which are sort of a half-way house but that is a more exotic and recent phenomenon. It is called "Bermudan" because Bermuda is in the ocean between Europe and America.
[2]When I worked in finance (2000-2008) some of this bias still existed. Our swaps desk was almost entirely French.
[3] Reference for the story although it is well known and there are many others https://www.macroption.com/american-vs-european-options/#ori...
I do suspect that the fact that the US doesn’t have a recent history of being oppressed might discount it a little (if one is considered a dominant power, one can afford the luxury of taking some mild negging in stride).
On the other hand, in case of e.g. “blacklist” — it meaning a list of people or entities to deny service — color of skin being unalienable phenotypical trait — history of black skin color used as basis for discrimination and oppression (and indeed denial of service) not long ago (or even now) — it could be a little trickier.
I have no personal experience with either case, though, so who am I to judge.
Likewise "hysterical" derives from "hyster" (Uterus) and stems from the idea that the female reproductive system made women mad and incapable.
I feel like one of the things that people miss often in discussing these topics is the asymmetry of power. If you're one of the people who has historically been discriminated against you may well have different feelings from people who has historically doing the discriminating.
We should listen to each other more and if these terms are a barrier then there really is no harm to using other terms. I think using friendly language is the least I can do from the point of view of being courteous to others.
> We should listen to each other more and if these terms are a barrier then there really is no harm to using other terms.
Agreed.
I’m personally torn on this issue. On one hand, the fact that these words rub people wrong is an indicator of a deeper problem—in an ideal world, no one would take a term personally because they’d know it denotes a technical concept and isn’t intended to put anyone down; on the other hand, it’s not really that difficult to stop using some terms in new codebases.
On one hand, we should get input from those directly affected by this; on the other hand, those affected may choose to stay silent despite possible discomfort and treat it as a problem with their insecurities rather than the industry.
I've also met enough people from different places in the world to understand it happens to everybody for different reasons. Hell there's racism in the world I bet a lot of people don't even realize is an issue. An old Iranian coworker and a chinese coworker of mine hated eachother, for absolutely no reason other than racism.
I also live in a place where the prevalent racism isn't the black/white stuff that goes on in america and where generally black and white people get along reasonably well.
You're right, it's about culture and perspective.
And that's what bugs me most about PC culture. It doesn't take into account culture and perspective. It doesn't take into account the fact that prejudice and racism depend heavily on where you are exactly in the world and it doesn't take into account the fact that a good majority of the things PC culture would consider racist isn't.
All I know is, i've had a lot of great conversations that started with me or someone else asking.
'Hey, where are you from?'
I can't think of one time when either me or someone else was offended by this yet...
https://othersociologist.com/2017/07/15/where-are-you-from-r...
> 'Hey, where are you from?'
Once in Hong Kong I asked a taxi driver of Indian descent where he’s from, and felt awkward when he responded “Hong Kong”.
This was a failure of applying the golden rule on my part, as I hate when others ask me that.
I’m personally starting to think that, when strangers get together, crowds where there’s less profiling going on are where more interesting conversations tend to happen—and I really tend to take “where are you from?” as a fundamental profiling question (some don’t use it this way, but too many do).
At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, the individual self-confidence that allows one to easily respond “yeah I might look X but I’m actually Y, yadda yadda” is also a great thing.
But, to tangentially riff on your point, white straight cis males could never be recognized as even being capable of having such feelings, even if they had them. Only systematically oppressed peoples can feel that way, so it is said.
The usage of black in “black box” means opaque, not bad.
So these aren’t the same.
I had never thought about the connotations of blacklist and whitelist before it was pointed out to me. In retrospect, blacklist and whitelist are unnatural meanings of the words black and white, and blocklist and allowlist make much more sense.
Consequently, I changed the code I’m responsible for at my company to use block and allow.
It's not like the word "black" is just used with blacklist. We also use it in other places like black market, black hat, and black site. None of these are related to black people, but instead all relate to a shady dark/scary side of things like you mentioned.
When someone pictures a black market they are not thinking something that looks bright and colourful, they are thinking something that is dark and maybe grungy/sketchy looking.
The word policing is something I am really getting sick of.
Isn't it the other way around though? Black people skin is not of color black as in actual black. And white people skin is certainly not white.
It's the naming of skin tone that is sloppy and figurative. While the association of white with light/visibility and black with darkness/unknown is natural.
Overall I think the logic of opposing words like "blacklist" just falls apart logically in multiple areas and I think your explanation is a good example of why.
If it had been black list and green list, I'm not sure anyone would have made a racial connection.
I don't use it to mean "black" or "white." I use it to mean things that aren't black or white. Blocklist and allowlist don't exist because they are things. I don't think about the "Black" and "White" in these words. I think about what they mean to people. This is why you don't hear that many people complain that the use of these words in games has changed or changed. The people complaining, I think, are the people who have changed the way they think about these words.
Black holes do not allow matter to escape and white holes are theoretical constructs that admit matter to the universe.
The color Black is the lack of visible light and white is considered to be the color of "all" light together.
In all cases discussed, black correlates to absence and white to admission or presence. Now I guess it could be asserted that these terms are also racially tinged but again I am not aware of any sources making those assertations. Feel free to link me.
I don't plan to edit and rename things within my existing software as it would add needless churn, risk, and the risk-benefit analysis just doesn't support it for me. Not saying that my analysis is the same for everyone else.
I think that language goes back eons. I think the black/white metaphor is employed in the book of Genesis/B'reshith for instance. People have been scared of the dark for more of human history than not. Nighttime is black, when things putrefy they turn black. Uncorrupted snow is white. The examples from nature are legion. What’s weird is using these terms for people.
Maybe the more sensible way to address the language issue is to stop calling people “black” and “white”. Why don’t we focus the scorching blast of social condemnation in that direction? The colors are silly classifications for people’s heredity or skin tone. Seems like the more elegant fix. Even today using the terms black and white can be “problematic” - some people don’t like being referred to as a black man by the wrong person, many white people consider “white boy” to be a racial epithet. So if we’re doing language surgery, let’s just ditch that part of the language and stop obsessing over the natural metaphors from time immemorial.
"According to a 1968 Newsweek poll, more than two-thirds of black Americans still preferred Negro, but black had become the majority preference by 1974." https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2010/octo...
A nonsensical "racial" hierarchy based on nominal colours is the SOURCE of the problem.
For what it's worth, the labels "white" and "black" were NOT chosen randomly by the architects of racial hierarchy (see Bacon's rebellion).
It was a very effective use of symbolism, to assign and label one part of humanity as the untermensch, and thus justify their enslavement and exploitation.
Changing branch names and policing language is akin to bandaid on a festering wound.
Here's some more extensive reading from an earlier article when Maven did this: https://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/no-more-inf...
The key bit:
> It reminded me of an iconic BBC interview with Muhammad Ali in 1971 where he recalled that all the positive things he grew up with were white, from White Cloud tissue paper to the White House, while all the negative things, from the bad luck of a black cat to the term blackmail, were black. Nearly 50 years later, that linguistic measuring stick is alive and well.
He's right. Lots of English therms equate black with bad and white with good. Blacklist and whitelist fit into that pattern, and changing it takes a small step in the other direction.
Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix.
Which black “folks” prefer the term “blocklist”? Black people are not a monolith. It seems like you’re just injecting an assumption of what certain people prefer.
Having been at now 3 different orgs implementing the [blacklist->blocklist, slave->replica, etc] routine, it’s always done for the same reason: the unquestionable brand of modern identity politics, diversity & inclusion, whatever you want to call it that is infecting pretty much every tech company (and indeed pretty much every company in general).
It’s an ideology that treats races as monolithic and only recognizes a certain set of opinions as valid. Racial blindness is implicit racism, we need to implement affirmative action policies over the dimensions of the 4-tuple (sexuality, cis/trans, rage, gender) - these are the types of beliefs they enforce.
The colour comparisons are also dumb, because "black" skin is actually more like dark brown and "white" skin isn't white at all, unless you're albino or incredibly sick (which again, points to how stupid it is to make comparisons like "white==good").
Is that anywhere near true? I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if there are 10% as many.
>
> The usage of black in “black box” means opaque, not bad.
> So these aren’t the same.
Why did this line of reasoning not apply to the name of the default branch in git? master in that case could easily mean master copy.
It just so happens that it might not map to skin colour very well, but I don't think it's appropriate to change them because there is no connotation.
I buy that in some cases, there is language that can affect people and perception, just not in this case.
Personally I think it's the skintone names that are weird. White to mean a certain shade of pinkish beige... Black to mean a whole range from beige to brown to dark blueish brown.
Our brains are very good at differenciating skintones, unlike shades of cyan for example. But for some reason the skin tones names are caricatures.
I am in favor of denylist, though. I have never liked blacklist as far as I remember. I could never remember whether black means let it through or stop it.
I get similarly confused with "in the red" and "in the black" - which one means I'm losing money?
Don't even get me started on the CIA's black phones (which are green) and red phones (which are black). At least I think I got that right.
Colors are not a good way to name things.
This is everyone's story with these words. This movement was not driven by POC taking issue with the word "blacklist". It started with some white dude's shower thought that because "blacklist" was a negative thing, and because "black" also can refer to skin color, that the term was thus racist [1]. Then a bunch of other white dudes ([2]) were like "oh yeah for sure that makes so much sense" and here we are--everyone goes along with it because they (rather patronizingly) think that someone else will be offended.
The word "blacklist" is many hundreds of years old. It does not have a racial origin. It's just a word. Nobody actually makes the association between "blacklist" and "black people" unless you tell them to! Our brains aren't nearly so stupid!
[1] https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1030200563802230786 [2] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1032050325513940992
Point being, what’s easier to fix?? Color associations with people or overturning thousands of timeless metaphors across many cultures?
"block" sounds too much like "black", your intrinsic racism is still showing...? This is probably what's coming next.
It only took one complaint from someone in Canada to get Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" cut in half on SiriusXM for an entire continent.
(Though you can still hear the full version on the deep tracks channel).)
Even after the decision was reversed[0]?
[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/canada-lifts-b...
Then perhaps that's something the "opposition activists" should start doing...
Personally, if I had a GH account (which I don't), I might be inclined to change the "master" branch to "slave" just to fuck with the PC police.
Please don't hyperbolize about this stuff. If you want people to take you seriously about real censorship you need to not fly off the handle with accidents (which have ALWAYS been with us, c.f. buttbuttination).
Another commenter here pointed out the Markiplier case. They banned entire Google accounts for spamming emotes in YouTube chat and those bans were un-appealable. They unbanned the accounts only after the public outrage on Twitter.
Besides, people don't take it seriously anyway, because they actually agree with real censorship and they dismiss it with the "private company" argument.
The details of this particular case were in the linked article. And they show that this wasn't unfixable or unappealable or otherwise beyond relief. It was a fuckup and they fixed it.
Characterizing it "un-appealable" is hyperbolic by definition. It's not helpful. And it happens almost every time something like this comes up, and people like you end up redirecting to something else, like that emote spam thing. And per your text it seems like that was resolved via appeal too!
It's just very tiresome to see everyone screaming so loud about something that doesn't seem like a big deal. I mean, if they really wanted to be censoring you, don't you think they'd come after threads like this first?
At least 50% of the drama about these language shifts comes from people who can't handle making decisions that make people unhappy. Just put your big kid pants on, make a decision, and deal with the response, without hyperventilating about "cancellation".
Ha! Never thought about that one. Imagine if it had been Woman In The Middle though, the outrage!
Is this from actual developers or just activists spamming people wherever they find them?