Blacklist is not a racist word | Hacker News Reader

Blacklist is not a racist word

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45 pointsantiRadical52 comments

> Some radical people have suddenly started to think blacklist and whitelist are racially insensitive. Are they really racist words? The answer is a no.

In my books, these people aren't "radical", they're simply "wrong".

Calling them "radical" gives the impression that being mindful about the language we choose to accept socially is in general radical. Of course it isn't.

Talking about words and their meaning, "radical" comes from the latin for root, so a true radical should get to the bottom of things, work from first principles...

Let's have a go!

It is dark at night, and black is dark. The one thing that's clear is "white" human skin ain't white, and "black" ain't black either. So... saying black or white to categorize any member of the human race is incorrect, using "blacklist" for something that can't see the light is kinda correct.

I'm actually incredibly fascinated by this tortured comment.

In a comment advocating for getting to the bottom of things and first principles of "words and their meanings" of all things (whatever that means here, I don't know), you:

a) misinterpret what any current usage of radical would mean b) proceed to, from what I presume your idea of presume principles is, chain together a half hearted series of arbitrary connections c) continue to skip over any well understood meaning of whiee and black in the context of race for not being literal enough? d) but conclude that a very unusual, uncommon, tenuous metaphors about blacklists being for blocking light being more correct somehow?

There's just so much going on in such a short comment. I really hope it was on purpose, it's Terry Pratchett-esq.

Like isn't black a literal color first and foremost before being an allusion to darkness and light? Even if it's not the precise color, isn't that ... closer via whatever your first principles are here?

(The comment you're replying to didn't make sense to me either, but it is true that in the literal, pedantic world, black isn't really a colour. It's true that "black" is just a word we use to describe how our brains interpret the near-absence of light in a patch of our field of vision. In other words, black is the absence of colour/light.)

From my own experience, the people declaring usual words and expressions racist tend to pride themselves as being "radical".

Still waiting for Mastercard to change their absolutely 'unacceptable', 'offensive' and somewhat 'oppressive' name.

"Maincard"

stablecard

/mysides

Also 'toxic' and 'problematic' and whatever thought-crimes I forgot.

English language should be canceled because colonialism etc

If master card no longer offers credit cards, then any slave account could be discredited occurring with deactivated debit cards.

I'm not against the idea of inclusive language in general, but given that companies and projects have limited resources, I'm not convinced the level of impact on diversity and inclusion is worth the level of effort that seems to go into it. I'd rather see people creating apprenticeship roles and/or sourcing interns from non-traditional sources if we really want to see change. There's probably an untapped resource pool in every city of smart, talented highschool kids in disadvantage school that don't have any current pathway into tech, and giving them that onramp will do more for D&I than inclusive language.

I was wondering why all of a sudden the default github branch was “main”

What's dumb about that is, I'm sure it refers to the definition of master as:

adjective main; principal. "the apartment's master bathroom has a free-standing oval bathtub"

So what I didn't know was the origin of the word "master" in relation to housing.

"The phrase "master bedroom" first appeared in the 1926 Sears catalog, according to the real estate blog Trelora. It was a feature of a $4,398 Dutch colonial home, the most expensive in the catalog, referring to a large second floor bedroom with a private bathroom."

https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_971e3114fec2c583d17a32ac8c...

1926 was only 60 years after the civil war, an era where the evils of slavery will still felt by those, also a year that the KKK still had marches in DC.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b39318/

The KKK even had political influence:

"In the case of the Democratic Party, the key battleground was the 1924 Convention. The Klan endorsed William Gibbs McAdoo, the frontrunner for the nomination."

http://www1.assumption.edu/ahc/1920s/Eugenics/Klan.html

So the only question that remains was Sears and Roebuck racist? Some think they were, others point to the fact that they enabled blacks to still purchase from the Sears catalog.

Another option is that Sears was just marketing the house to the consumers that existed at the time. In 1926, what rich KKK sympathizer wouldn't like to sleep in the "Master Bedroom" gloriousness of the 1860's?

That's all very interesting but I don't think it has anything to do with if the phrase "master" is racist.

A quick search reveals the following English idioms:

master master plan master of ceremonies master key master class master baker master of arts baggage master past master grand master zen master puppet master master of fine arts master of science master sergeant chess master old master master builder master bedroom harbor master master of literature master copy master cylinder master at arms master of library science sailing master master race question master master of arts in library science master hand master file master of divinity master of theology master mason master of architecture master of arts in teaching master of education property master master switch drill master master lease master in business master of the rolls master cast ballet master master in public affairs master mechanic master stroke master vibrator master chief petty officer master of laws riding master harbour master job master rattlesnake master assay master master notes master of science in engineering master and servant wreck master dance master games master kong the master master plans bus master master in business administration master mind master tape senior master sergeant station master the master master slave mint master special master wagon master forage master jack of all trades and master of none master in chancery master keys quarter master three master two master be own master been own master dock master dutch master fencing master master electrician master of the horse writing master bush master corrected master cast gang master is own master master classes master gland master lode master switches master tap master two step exercise test

A quick google search on the origin of the word master comes up with this (and in fact, I don't know why you didn't search this originally).

"Master comes from the Latin adverb magis (“more”). It first appeared in English over a thousand years ago, referring to people who had authority over others, whether as rulers, employers, teachers, or fathers."

I would imagine slaves and slave owners would be in that list as well.

I'm not saying that "master" is always racist, but in certain cases, it seems pretty clear -- as in the Master/Slave J/K flip flop. The example given "master bathroom" surely seems like it could have racist connotations.

I will admit that I had no idea that "slave" was actually a tech term until I heard about the blacklist controversy. I will admit the term "slave file" is rather...uncomfy.

Not but it has racist connotations, you really want to go out of your way to educate everyone on the etymology of a word because of an antiwoke crusade?

It is the same reason that polite people don't continue to use the word, "niggardly".

> it has racist connotations

Come on, everybody knows this is not true.

What are the connotations? People don't say niggardly because the pronunciation of the word is literally there. Are you saying people shouldn't say the word "blacklight" because it refers to black? Black is part of blacklight, and on its own does not mean anything racist, unlike the first part of "niggardly".

>you really want to go out of your way to educate everyone on the etymology of a word because of an antiwoke crusade

What's wrong with people voicing their opinion in a debate fashion?

Please don't use "crusade" as a negative. The crusades were difficult fights for liberation of various European countries against Muslim colonialism, which had already stolen much of their land and enslaved their people [1,2]. Using them as a negative synonym is very offensive and problematic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary

Of course the word crusade has a negative connotation. The trails of blood and destruction they left are well known and documented. As per your links, the enslavement that happened were due to war, so the same as what the Europeans did.

> The trails of blood and destruction they left are well known and documented.

You're saying Europe should not have retaliated for all the land and people that were stolen? They were at war, under attack for centuries, but if they counter-attack, well that's the worst thing ever, still remembered almost a thousand years later, while the Muslim attacks they were responding to go largely unmentioned. It's bizarre.

What provoked the Muslim attacks, and how did the Muslims treat the local population compared to the chaos and destruction left by the Crusades? Islam has rules of engagement, which prohibits the atrocities committed by the Crusades and the Mongols

The word "black" is a thousand times more important to speech than the two syllables that make the word "niggardly" problematic.

White and black, light and darkness, yang and yin, on and off, one and zero. I'll bet that most people that have ever lived understand those parallels. Human melanin concentrations in skin don't enter into it. Attempting to control usage of a word as fundamental and common as "black" is an absurd overreach. It's nothing like "niggardly", which was barely in use anyway and brings to mind the same slur in the minds of just about any American alive today.

Well, it does have it's own wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n...

The etymology of niggard, “nigon,” is entirely unrelated to the racial slur which derived from “negro/nègre” in Latin languages meaning black. It’s just an extreme case due to the racial slur being contained in the spelling of the word.

It's not, but insisting on using it even though there are perfectly fine alternatives and you know that there's a sizeable chunk of people that considers it racist is just being an asshole.

If you let the minority dictate your life it's gonna cause trouble. What if nazis start saying that they love "mainline" branch because it's meinline and that reminds them of Adolf. Ok lets remove mainline.

Remember the whole ordeal with the "ok" hand sign? That's what happens when you let the minority control you, and that wasn't even a real case of racism.

> What if nazis start saying that they love "mainline" branch because it's meinline and that reminds them of Adolf. Ok lets remove mainline.

You see, the thing about culture is that it's rapidly evolving and not necessarily rational (which is perfectly fine). If the word "mainline" would become associated with nazis commonly enough, I'd definitely want to avoid its usage despite of there being nothing wrong it, just like I'm not going to use swastikas just because it's an ancient symbol of well-being. So no, "blacklist" isn't racist, but if we can reduce the ugly associations that our language may be implying, then insisting on not doing that surely doesn't present you in a good light.

Why is a rapidly evolving, irrational culture perfectly fine? It sounds quite dangerous and self destructive to me. If you're going to live on eggshells being scared of what a fringe minority decides on a whim, then I don't know what to say.

Because that's what culture is and has always been and everything is fine. Nobody is living on eggshells just because words can change meanings and associations over time. To a well adjusted person, it's a non-issue.

I'd say those people who suddenly make innocent common words "racist" are the assholes. They're extremely privileged and act like a totalitarian regime. What's scary is that they believe they're on the right side.

> act like a totalitarian regime

That is dangerous overstatement.

> That is dangerous overstatement.

That is a hyperbolic statement.

No, it isn't.

You're wrong. Do you know the origin of political correctness? Stalin and Nazis loved that.

"Blacklist is racist" is indeed a dangerous overstatement.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily (exclusively, actually) for ideological battle. We don't allow that here, regardless of what ideology you're for or against. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> regardless of what ideology you're for or against

This is totally untrue and everybody knows that.

If you can find an example of an account abusing HN the way you were, which we haven't banned, I'd like to know about it.

...A "sizeable chunk of people" consider the word 'blacklist' racist?

What's this "sizeable chunk"? Where do these people congregate?

Oh boy, unattributed editorial, very credible.

Who wrote this??

Apparently "blacklist" is not a racist word.

It’s just a major coincidence that whitelist is the opposite of being placed on a deny list

No it's not. Whitelist was coined after blacklist.

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