+1 on this discussion progression. I too struggled with certain
expressions in my earlier English-learning days, but today the used
expressions don't carry any unnecessary baggage for me as my
understanding of them is purely technical. So, while I myself don't have
a problem with them, I can see that others might.
I'd also dare to say there shouldn't be much flak to take anyway. The
cause seems OK, but there is heightened pressure due to recent events. I
would say this alone is the only thing that I see might be an issue: why
exactly now?
LP,
Jure
On 15/06/2020 23:31, Aymeric Augustin wrote:
Hello,
In the context of access control, blacklist / whitelist makes sense
only if the reader has a preconceived assumption that black = bad,
illegal, forbidden / white = good, legal, authorized. You can probably
see where I'm going.
Sure, blacklist / whitelist has nothing to do with race to start with,
but I find the parallel with Apartheid sufficiently obvious to make it
embarrassing, certainly because I'm not a native English speaker and I
don't have enough background on what has racial overtones and what
doesn't.
I mean, I had been living in the US for several months whet someone
had to tell me the difference between "to screw" and "to screw up".
(I'm grateful.) Do you really expect a guy like me to know that
"blackface" has racial overtones but "blacklist" doesn't, and thus
interpret the words correctly?
Besides, the connection didn't exist in the first place, but when
people start making it, can we still pretend it doesn't exist? If I
wanted to troll a linguist, I'd say it's akin to pretending that words
people actually use don't exist until they're written in a dictionary ;-)
Lastly, another argument for the statu quo is that humans are good at
interpreting words based on context, so "black" in "blacklist" isn't a
problem. However, I counter that humans are even better at making
connections and detecting patterns, even subconsciously and sometimes
even when the pattern doesn't actually exist. That's quite likely to
happen here.
I agree that this isn't as clear cut as master / slave. That must be
why it took us six years to go from the master / slave discussion to
the blacklist / whitelist discussion.
No one's gonna get confused on the meaning regardless of whether we
make the change or not. This is "just" a political marker. It doesn't
have one correct answer. It has several answers whose correctness vary
over time.
I think we'll make the change at some point. Some progressives will
hate us for taking so much time. Some conservatives will hate us for
being snowflakes. Since we already started spending time on this
discussion, we might just as well do the change while we're there,
take some flak for a couple days, and move on.
Best regards,
--
Aymeric.
On 15 Jun 2020, at 21:56, Daniele Procida <dani...@vurt.org
<mailto:dani...@vurt.org>> wrote:
Tom Carrick wrote:
I don't think there is an easy answer here, and I open this can of worms
somewhat reluctantly. I do think Luke is correct that we should be
concerned with our credibility if we wrongly change this, but I'm also
worried about our credibility if we don't.
There are plenty of black-something terms in English that are both
negative and have nothing whatsoever to do with race. The black and
the dark are those things that are hidden and sinister, as contrasted
with those that are in the light and open to scrutiny (black magic,
dark arts, black legs, blackguards, blackmail, etc).
I think it would look pretty silly to confuse meanings that refer to
what's shadowy and obscure with things that have racial overtones,
and I think we should steer well clear of that. It's not at all like
metaphors such as master/slave.
If we made such a change and tried to justify it on the grounds of a
connection between race and the word "black" in those terms, we'd be
rightly laughed at.
1000 neckbeards would immediately come out of the woodwork having
done some basic web searches going 'neeer neeer neeer, the Django
Software Foundation overflowing with snowflakes who think that
"blacklist" means [etc etc etc]', and who has the stomach for that?
Even choosing to do it on the basis of the potential for offence
seems to be a fairly flimsy argument.
On the other hand, we can do whatever the hell we like.
We don't have to justify anything to anyone. If we want to change
words in *our* framework, it's absolutely nobody's business but our own.
If black members of the DSF or the community are disheartened that
the word "black" gets to refer to so many negative things and are
bothered when they see them in Django, then that alone is sufficient
justification.
If we want a reason for changing "blacklist" (or whatever), it's that
people in our community said they would feel better about it and
asked to have it changed.
Acknowledging how someone feels about something and acting because
you care about their feelings seems to be a respectful thing to do.
"We did it because we felt like it" is an utterly unanswerable
justification.
The DSF has credibility because the software is first rate, the
foundation is well-governed and the community is an international
example of decency and kindness. Things like this become credible
because the DSF chooses to do them - it's not the other way round.
Daniele
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