>My point is exactly that by not washing out these words, we allow ourselves to have conversations about and raise exactly those points you mentioned. It allows

>My point is exactly that by not washing out these words, we allow ourselves to have conversations about and raise exactly those points you mentioned. It allows us to think about the root causes of these terms and reflect on our own behavior. Why do we assume that these books are always accompanied by these conversations and these conversations wouldn't happen without these books? Many times kids read these books alone and no one ever talks to them about these words. Other times they are read in specific classes in school in contexts that aren't ideal to address these issues. An English teacher shouldn't have to spend all their time teaching history to keep these things in context. Let those conversations happen in social studies and history classes. >Have you considered that the white/black differentiation of not about color but about what humans can perceive? To me it seems as if it would have been established because humans can see during the day vs. can't do so well at night. There are many reasons outside of race where light/dark, black/white make sense. Yes, but whether the origin lies in racism or not isn't necessarily the only deciding factor. Just the question of whether it originates in racism is often enough to distract from a book. Like an editor might suggest an author change phrasing to avoid an unintentional rhyme or pun, sometimes a word should be change to avoid distracting the reader with considerations about whether a term is racist or not. The obvious example is the word "niggardly"[1]. Its etymology has nothing to do with race, but editors will still warn you against using it because the distraction is causes makes it a poor word choice in most situations even if the word itself is inoffensive. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n...