5 ms·

I disagree with you on the light metaphor. Black things admit photons. White things reject photons. Here's some more extensive reading from an earlier article

I disagree with you on the light metaphor. Black things admit photons. White things reject photons. Here's some more extensive reading from an earlier article when Maven did this: https://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/no-more-inflammatory-jargon-change-blacklist-to-blocklist/ https://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/no-more-inf... The key bit: > It reminded me of an iconic BBC interview with Muhammad Ali in 1971 where he recalled that all the positive things he grew up with were white, from White Cloud tissue paper to the White House, while all the negative things, from the bad luck of a black cat to the term blackmail, were black. Nearly 50 years later, that linguistic measuring stick is alive and well. He's right. Lots of English therms equate black with bad and white with good. Blacklist and whitelist fit into that pattern, and changing it takes a small step in the other direction. Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix.

__blockcipher__ 6y ago
> Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix. Which black “folks” prefer the term “blocklist”? Black people are not a monolith. It seems like you’re just injecting an assumption of what certain people prefer. Having been at now 3 different orgs implementing the [blacklist->blocklist, slave->replica, etc] routine, it’s always done for the same reason: the unquestionable brand of modern identity politics, diversity & inclusion, whatever you want to call it that is infecting pretty much every tech company (and indeed pretty much every company in general). It’s an ideology that treats races as monolithic and only recognizes a certain set of opinions as valid. Racial blindness is implicit racism, we need to implement affirmative action policies over the dimensions of the 4-tuple (sexuality, cis/trans, rage, gender) - these are the types of beliefs they enforce.
nmfisher 6y ago
I'm going to be blunt - these types of anecdotes are just plain stupid. It's people picking and choosing examples to support their desired narrative, and just ignoring anything that contradicts it. There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white - white elephant, white ant, whitewash, white whale. Why didn't he mention those? The colour comparisons are also dumb, because "black" skin is actually more like dark brown and "white" skin isn't white at all, unless you're albino or incredibly sick (which again, points to how stupid it is to make comparisons like "white==good").
- yesenadam 6y ago
  > There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white Is that anywhere near true? I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if there are 10% as many.
  - CobrastanJorji 6y ago
    No, of course not. Look at his list. A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant. Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood...
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      > A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant. The white whale was an aberration, a freak of nature (just like a black sheep). White-washing has indisputably negative connotations. A white elephant is something that is incredibly expensive but fails to deliver any value. > Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood... I can play this game all day, too. "White as a sheet", "deathly white", "bleed someone white", "wave a white flag", "white feather". But again, none of this has any relevance whatsoever because white people aren't literally white and black people aren't literally black. We know racism exists, you don't need to manufacture some supposed linguistic association to prove it.

__blockcipher__ 6y ago

> Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix. Which black “folks” prefer the term “blocklist”? Black people are not a monolith. It seems like you’re just injecting an assumption of what certain people prefer. Having been at now 3 different orgs implementing the [blacklist->blocklist, slave->replica, etc] routine, it’s always done for the same reason: the unquestionable brand of modern identity politics, diversity & inclusion, whatever you want to call it that is infecting pretty much every tech company (and indeed pretty much every company in general). It’s an ideology that treats races as monolithic and only recognizes a certain set of opinions as valid. Racial blindness is implicit racism, we need to implement affirmative action policies over the dimensions of the 4-tuple (sexuality, cis/trans, rage, gender) - these are the types of beliefs they enforce.

nmfisher 6y ago

I'm going to be blunt - these types of anecdotes are just plain stupid. It's people picking and choosing examples to support their desired narrative, and just ignoring anything that contradicts it. There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white - white elephant, white ant, whitewash, white whale. Why didn't he mention those? The colour comparisons are also dumb, because "black" skin is actually more like dark brown and "white" skin isn't white at all, unless you're albino or incredibly sick (which again, points to how stupid it is to make comparisons like "white==good").

yesenadam 6y ago
> There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white Is that anywhere near true? I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if there are 10% as many.
- CobrastanJorji 6y ago
  No, of course not. Look at his list. A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant. Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood...
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    > A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant. The white whale was an aberration, a freak of nature (just like a black sheep). White-washing has indisputably negative connotations. A white elephant is something that is incredibly expensive but fails to deliver any value. > Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood... I can play this game all day, too. "White as a sheet", "deathly white", "bleed someone white", "wave a white flag", "white feather". But again, none of this has any relevance whatsoever because white people aren't literally white and black people aren't literally black. We know racism exists, you don't need to manufacture some supposed linguistic association to prove it.