They only make sense if you disregard any costs associated with the change. In addition to logistical costs, it's culturally costly to make many people change, and even more costly that people who fail to adapt are demonized. Generations of text was written to use blacklist/whitelist, and people who read them would naturally be more comfortable with those usage, and you're asking them to bend over.
>If you were trying to learn the English language, I'd imagine a self describing term is much easier to understand.
The controversies of blacklist/whitelist are very America-centric and your argument is exemplary of that. Terms like blacklist/white list have already permeated many languages by this time. People who have seen blacklist/whitelist in their own language would have no problem adapting to the English version of it.