* Ian Evans: > Leah Culver (@leahculver) tweeted at 11:32 PM on Fri, Jun 05, 2020: > I refuse to use “whitelist”/“blacklist” or “master”/“slave” terminology > for computers. Join me. Words matter. > (https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1269109776983547904?s=03)
Does Leah Culver also refuse to use the word "index"? It has been used at least since the Roman Empire, and in today's German, index can still be synonymous to blacklist/blocklist depending on context. To me, "black" and "white", just like their German equivalents "schwarz" and "weiß", do not have any relations to race unless the surrounding context establishes that type of relation. Out of curiosity, I had a look at Wikipedia.de's disambiguation page for "Schwarz", and the very first entry is as I had expected: Schwarz, Farbe, bzw. die Empfindung der "Abwesenheit von Farben" The literal translation into English is as follows: Black, colour, respectively the perception of "absence of colours" This is followed by more than 20 entries, none of which has racial connotations. There is however a reference to another disambiguation page way down in the "see also" section, and following the link to "Schwarze" (lit. "blacks") there is a mention of it meaning, among other things, either "people with dark skin colour" or "members of a christian-conservative party" -- once again, depending on context. Corollary: Please don't mistake American sensibilities for something the whole world cares about, let alone needs to conform with. Racism is a blight on humanity, but there are more important issues to consider than the use of colours. All that said, if Wietse voluntarily chooses to change certain terms, that is completely fine by me. -Ralph
