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Discussion on: GitHub to replace racially-loaded terms (master, slave, blacklist and whitelist)

 
habereder profile image
Raphael Habereder • Edited

Well, at this point, it is useless to continue any kind of debate anymore.

Nothing can prove you wrong, if you are dead set on being the absolute authority about truth.
I do hope, that in the future, you take the time to take a good, long look at the world and reflect on these statements.

Seriously, I am sorry you feel that way.

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lmdj07 profile image
lmdj07 • Edited

Raphael, I agree with your point that Damien should not make a blanket statement about white people.

However, back to the subject of this post and let me ask you something.

Do you think it's a coincidence that everything black in the English language connotes something negative (black magic, blackmail, blacklist) while everything white has a positive connotation (whitelist, whitewash, 'great white shark')?

Or could it be that those in authority in the past made a conscious effort to make it that way?

Those with the authority now should use it so I think it's the right thing to do!

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sduduzog profile image
Sdu • Edited

My argument to that would be, I'm not black, I'm brown, or fair in complexion. But notice how we all spiral into these discussions about wording, which makes everyone uncomfortable either way because that's how the world is, regardless. In fact, saying 'master' is racist makes it racist, and saying 'master' is one of the qualifications my dad got, makes it nothing more than a degree. We all seem to agree that the world needs fixing but this fix should not be top 5 of the list, especially with what is going on in the States, the most recent source of all this tension

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habereder profile image
Raphael Habereder • Edited

Do you think it's a coincidence that everything black in the English language connotes something negative (black magic, blackmail, blacklist) while everything white has a positive connotation (whitelist, whitewash, 'great white shark')?

To be honest, reading these words, mostly they actually spark the opposite effect for me, since I am more biased towards black being "exciting, more appealing to look at", so I am not sure how qualified I am to answer your question.

But I'll humour your very good question and will try to also insert my point, that I do think that personal perspective plays a huge roll, as I will demonstrate with your examples.

  • Black Magic is kind of cool (I'm more the destructive guy, which I know, is a bad example in this context), while White Magic (Healing) is boring to me. (I also don't know why this paragraph is completely bold)
  • Blackmail, very bad, that one I agree, undeniably. Though I don't know if there is "whitemail" of any kind that would be "good" in comparison. (Apparently, yes there is "whitemail", and it's supposed to be good. Never heard of that tbh)

  • Blacklist, this one, is different to me. I rather blacklist "bad.domain" than whitelist 1000s of domains I think are "good". Blacklisting is much less effort and in my opinion more helpful. Though the movement toward accept/blocklist is perfectly reasonable in that case. That would get a thumbsup emoji from me, if I knew how to type it on a keyboard :D

Whitelist, Whitewash, great white:
Whitelisting, as I mentioned before, I hate it. SO much work. Please let me blacklist instead, I beg you. Whitewashing? Bad shit, especially in movies.
Great whites? Scary as all hell, they are monsters.

Though, and that is where I am wary, I might be heavily biased toward the color black being good, because I find black, as a color, way more appealing than white.

Or could it be that those in authority in the past made a conscious effort to make it that way?

To be honest, I can't say no to that. Etymology is a complex and very interesting topic and most words that are bound to a color, have the basic color somewhere in their history. So I would like to reserve that judgement to the specialists in this case.

Maybe it's just my naivety to hope "humanity is mostly good" when creating words.

Those with the authority now should use it so I think it's the right thing to do!

I agree to a point. If it's something that actually hurts people, that would undeniably bring a positive change to the world, then by all means. Bring down the hammer of justice and bring it down hard.

But I don't see the positive it is going to bring the world to rename a default branch in a code management tool. Especially not, if there are so many more obvious things with much more impact we could do with this newly sparked drive instead (for example to bring down the hammer on the police, which I know, is a US-Centric problem right now and not a global thing).

I just think it's a huge uproar over a small thing, when this drive could bring so much more change somewhere else.