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In Europe this would be inappropriate... (The "Black" in the title of the program, not the teaching girls, obviously.) I don't think any European here would di

In Europe this would be inappropriate... (The "Black" in the title of the program, not the teaching girls, obviously.) I don't think any European here would disagree. The fact that you categorise someone as "black" is just awful. How black exactly do they have to be? Are you going to measure it? Are southern Italians black? What about Turks? ... See the problem? Edit: Just want to point out that I'm not talking about the specific word "black". Use whatever word you want. Just to put this into context: here, in Belgium, it's actually illegal to register someone's "race" (except for medical reasons).

moistgorilla 13y ago
I read somewhere that using african american is also bad since there are many black people that don't identify as african and don't even have african heritage. I think black is much more inclusive.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  African-American also has the problem that not all black people identify themselves as American. Although it does lead to an interesting conversation about American imperialism when one expresses concern over how much of African governments are run by African-Americans.
- fortes 13y ago
  Also, there are plenty of non-black people who were born in Africa.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
>The fact that you categorise someone as "black" is just awful Words have cultural connotations. I don't think one can make the claim that a word is "awful" by how its understood in a completely different culture.
- detcader 13y ago
  Yes; try calling someone a 'spaz' in the UK.
DigitalJack 13y ago
I don't know how things are in europe, but blacks categorize themselves. They were called "colored" by whites, and they fought to be called negros. Black was offensive back then (60's). Then Negro suddenly became offensive and they called themselves Black which used to be offensive but no longer was. Some called themselves afro-american, and today it's predominately african american. These days, and for decades past, it's about what they want to call themselves. Who "they" refers exactly to is mostly lost on me.
- judk 13y ago
  I think your understanding of sociolinguistics has room to grow. Ponder how it was that those words like "colored" and "Negro" were 'suddenly' decided to be offensive.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    The inability to see the world from another person's perspective being displayed in this thread is excruciating.
  - omonra 13y ago
    While I can see why 'colored' may be considered offensive, why Negro? It's just spanish/portuguese word for black. My own hunch is that the word just has too much baggage (ie rights of blacks at the time they were referred to by this word were curtailed - hence the need to move on to a new word without the connotations).
    - judk 13y ago
      Correct. And the sneering voice that can turn any word into a slur, until we try again next generation and hope that the next word doesn't get slurred.
- kingkawn 13y ago
  That there is still comfort in referring to Blacks and What They Do as a group at all means there's a long way to go.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- kingkawn 13y ago
  It would only be better because its impolite to call attention to how blackness still has negative social consequences in the US. Edit: parent comment was deleted, said that calling it Poor Kids Code would be better.
judk 13y ago
"Poor Kids Code" would indeed be better. Or just "Any Kids Code" and run the class in a poor neighborhood where rich parents don't want to go.
- lsiclait 13y ago
  The About section of the Black Girls Code site says that its goal is to provide girls of color the opportunity to learn about technology and computer science. It doesn't say anything about level of wealth. So it is unclear to me how the name "Poor Kids Code" would be better
- mladenkovacevic 13y ago
  Judk has spoken! Change your mandate to get poor people to code and not focus on any unpleasantly ethnic segments. Since all black girls are naturally born poor, they will completely fit in with all the other poor kids. Embrace judk's non-discriminating rainbow of poverty!
kaivi 13y ago
Indeed. I am european, and upon seeing the title, this video immediately came to my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsVMr7NWuCU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsVMr7NWuCU Why would anyone even arrange anything by that name? Is it supposed to be a pun? Just imagine a different title: White Girls Code, and feel the privilege it implies.
adamors 13y ago
Is this really the first time you see "black", as in "black people" used? It's a common term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people Also, since a lot of people of color refer to themselves as black even in Europe, I don't see how it would be inappropriate. Unless of course the word in another language is also a racial slur.
- thiht 13y ago
  French here. I see this as inappropriate because it makes a difference between black people and non-black people, that's it. When I saw the title, I first wondered "Why not just "Girls Code"?" and then "Why not just "Kids Code"?". I think "black" here doesn't literally refer to black people but to foreigners in general, but I still don't get why they would limit this to "black" people and to girls only. In France in general, this would be poorly looked upon and referred as racist and sexist.
treenyc 13y ago
I don't think it is inappropriate. I think it is stupid and inefficient to euphemize ANYTHING! Say it like how it is. Black girls are black girls! Have SEX on the registration form, we don't need to change to GENDER. I also think no joke is inappropriate given the right context. However, as a human race (one who has developed advance language as a tool) we need to education our young on becoming aware of our own interpretation of the meaning of words. Mainly, we are responsible for making up the meaning of the word we hear/read, not the person who is saying the words. And it should human-being's number one priority to listen to what others are saying. Just listen. People who take offense to any verbal/written communication are just NOT emotionally matured, and they may want to take offense, and that is ok. It is certainly their rights and choice to do so. Verbal abuse doesn't exist, it is just a figment of imagination.
- paper_ziggurat 13y ago
  >Verbal abuse doesn't exist, it is just a figment of imagination. Tell that to psychologically damaged children who grew up with narcissistic parents. This is one of the most ignorant things I've seen around here. I expect this kind of stuff on reddit, but not here.
  - treenyc 13y ago
    Paper_ziggurat, I get your concerns about children. When I say "Verbal abuse" I am referring to it in the context of matured adults, which sometimes can be hard to find due to the idiosyncratic nature how all of human are raised. We are often matured in one area like professional life or career, and significantly immature in another like sex and personal/relationship. Sometimes truth said to us in those "armatured" area of our may occurs as Verbl abuse. I think any one who has had a good acting course will know this. The simple point may be best explain by this proverb: "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Oh and I don't read reddit.
- pstack 13y ago
  It needs to be "gender" if they are extending these opportunities to people who identify as female, regardless of biology.
Joeboy 13y ago
> I don't think any European here would disagree. The fact that you categorise someone as "black" is just awful. I'm from the UK, and I'm mystified as to why you think that. > Are southern Italians black? What about Turks? ... See the problem? I see what the problem would be if the programme organizers were seeking to police the gender / ethnicity of attendees, but my guess is it's probably open to anybody who identifies as a black girl. Irrelevant grammatical aside: Why is somebody who attends something an attendee, not an attender?
- pixelcort 13y ago
  An attender is someone to attends to the attendees. The other meaning of attend: to take care of, to look after.
eliteraspberrie 13y ago
In Europe, in general, a more accurate analogy would be "Roma Girls Code."
Zenst 13y ago
I tend too agree, there again I'd disagree on any form of descrimination, sex included and let us not touch upon the implied age factor as well. Fact is there are many EU `groups` that have black in the title and not deemed racist by law - good example would be the Black Police association http://www.nbpa.co.uk/ http://www.nbpa.co.uk/ . Now there might not be a White Police association and with that again is another product of dealing with descrimination and yet at the same time sets a bad example without intent. One way to look at this is would people be equaly or less offended if it said "White" instead of Black and with that why not stop there and have "Yellow", "Brown", see when you do that it starts to stand out as more offencive than having "Black" and that is perhaps a whole avenue of psycology than I'm up for. In short I personaly think it and any descrimination that you have no control over is wrong, you can't pick your skin colour or gender and with that any form of descrimination be it positive or negative is setting a bad example in society when it is only trying to restore balance albiet in a way that creates inbalance in a form it is trying to prevent. Still for every rule there is an exception, least programming teaches this.
- clarkm 13y ago
  Just because there is an organization with that in the name doesn't mean it can't be offensive. You know what NAACP stands for, right?
  - Zenst 13y ago
    In these times you can find at least somebody offended by anything in some way or another. No idea what NAACP stands for but suspect it is not a European thing.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
fredsters_s 13y ago
Not true. In the UK the "NUS Black Students’ campaign represents the largest constituency of Black students in Europe and students of African, Asian, Arab and Caribbean descent, at a local and national level on all issues affecting Black students." http://www.nus.org.uk/en/who-we-are/how-we-work/black-students/ http://www.nus.org.uk/en/who-we-are/how-we-work/black-studen...
slurry 13y ago
I realize that it's difficult to understand another culture, especially one so very different and - honestly - so much more complex and sophisticated than one's own, as the United States is in comparison with Belgium. I realize that this is hard. Nevertheless let's try. We can do better, HN. We can do better than "this wouldn't fly in Belgium" as the top-rated comment. BTW: Belgium? Not historically a model for even-handed tolerance with respect to black people: https://www.google.com/search?q=king+leopold&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS466US466&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=2zG_UrPfM-PisASCvYDADQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=932#es_sm=122&espv=210&q=belgian+congo+hands&safe=off&tbm=isch&imgdii=_ https://www.google.com/search?q=king+leopold&safe=off&rlz=1C...
- clarkm 13y ago
  Another example of wildly different standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet AKA Black Pete. Yes, people in Belgium and The Netherlands still dress up in blackface during the Christmas season.
rak 13y ago
Why is being categorized as Black an inherently negative thing? You should really read up on how we historically used to be classified and categorized. > Are southern Italians black? What about Turks? No. Black typically refers to people who are indigenous members of the African diaspora. As it's been used in the west, it's not typically resting solely on complexion (e.g they had another set of nasty names for darker people from Europe and Asia). I understand this is highly contextual, and that there may be native categorizations that are similar to specific regions, but I hope this clarifies how it applies. > Just to put this into context: here, in Belgium, it's actually illegal to register someone's "race" (except for medical reasons). I'm still curious why this is considered progress. As I've seen it in other countries, it doesn't do much to address racial issues in a society. The elimination of a box on state forms doesn't mean that it's somehow removed or diminished in that society.

moistgorilla 13y ago

I read somewhere that using african american is also bad since there are many black people that don't identify as african and don't even have african heritage. I think black is much more inclusive.

gizmo686 13y ago
African-American also has the problem that not all black people identify themselves as American. Although it does lead to an interesting conversation about American imperialism when one expresses concern over how much of African governments are run by African-Americans.
fortes 13y ago
Also, there are plenty of non-black people who were born in Africa.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

>The fact that you categorise someone as "black" is just awful Words have cultural connotations. I don't think one can make the claim that a word is "awful" by how its understood in a completely different culture.

detcader 13y ago
Yes; try calling someone a 'spaz' in the UK.

DigitalJack 13y ago

I don't know how things are in europe, but blacks categorize themselves. They were called "colored" by whites, and they fought to be called negros. Black was offensive back then (60's). Then Negro suddenly became offensive and they called themselves Black which used to be offensive but no longer was. Some called themselves afro-american, and today it's predominately african american. These days, and for decades past, it's about what they want to call themselves. Who "they" refers exactly to is mostly lost on me.

judk 13y ago
I think your understanding of sociolinguistics has room to grow. Ponder how it was that those words like "colored" and "Negro" were 'suddenly' decided to be offensive.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  The inability to see the world from another person's perspective being displayed in this thread is excruciating.
- omonra 13y ago
  While I can see why 'colored' may be considered offensive, why Negro? It's just spanish/portuguese word for black. My own hunch is that the word just has too much baggage (ie rights of blacks at the time they were referred to by this word were curtailed - hence the need to move on to a new word without the connotations).
  - judk 13y ago
    Correct. And the sneering voice that can turn any word into a slur, until we try again next generation and hope that the next word doesn't get slurred.
kingkawn 13y ago
That there is still comfort in referring to Blacks and What They Do as a group at all means there's a long way to go.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kingkawn 13y ago
It would only be better because its impolite to call attention to how blackness still has negative social consequences in the US. Edit: parent comment was deleted, said that calling it Poor Kids Code would be better.

judk 13y ago

"Poor Kids Code" would indeed be better. Or just "Any Kids Code" and run the class in a poor neighborhood where rich parents don't want to go.

lsiclait 13y ago
The About section of the Black Girls Code site says that its goal is to provide girls of color the opportunity to learn about technology and computer science. It doesn't say anything about level of wealth. So it is unclear to me how the name "Poor Kids Code" would be better
mladenkovacevic 13y ago
Judk has spoken! Change your mandate to get poor people to code and not focus on any unpleasantly ethnic segments. Since all black girls are naturally born poor, they will completely fit in with all the other poor kids. Embrace judk's non-discriminating rainbow of poverty!

kaivi 13y ago

Indeed. I am european, and upon seeing the title, this video immediately came to my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsVMr7NWuCU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsVMr7NWuCU Why would anyone even arrange anything by that name? Is it supposed to be a pun? Just imagine a different title: White Girls Code, and feel the privilege it implies.

adamors 13y ago

Is this really the first time you see "black", as in "black people" used? It's a common term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people Also, since a lot of people of color refer to themselves as black even in Europe, I don't see how it would be inappropriate. Unless of course the word in another language is also a racial slur.

thiht 13y ago
French here. I see this as inappropriate because it makes a difference between black people and non-black people, that's it. When I saw the title, I first wondered "Why not just "Girls Code"?" and then "Why not just "Kids Code"?". I think "black" here doesn't literally refer to black people but to foreigners in general, but I still don't get why they would limit this to "black" people and to girls only. In France in general, this would be poorly looked upon and referred as racist and sexist.

treenyc 13y ago

I don't think it is inappropriate. I think it is stupid and inefficient to euphemize ANYTHING! Say it like how it is. Black girls are black girls! Have SEX on the registration form, we don't need to change to GENDER. I also think no joke is inappropriate given the right context. However, as a human race (one who has developed advance language as a tool) we need to education our young on becoming aware of our own interpretation of the meaning of words. Mainly, we are responsible for making up the meaning of the word we hear/read, not the person who is saying the words. And it should human-being's number one priority to listen to what others are saying. Just listen. People who take offense to any verbal/written communication are just NOT emotionally matured, and they may want to take offense, and that is ok. It is certainly their rights and choice to do so. Verbal abuse doesn't exist, it is just a figment of imagination.

paper_ziggurat 13y ago
>Verbal abuse doesn't exist, it is just a figment of imagination. Tell that to psychologically damaged children who grew up with narcissistic parents. This is one of the most ignorant things I've seen around here. I expect this kind of stuff on reddit, but not here.
- treenyc 13y ago
  Paper_ziggurat, I get your concerns about children. When I say "Verbal abuse" I am referring to it in the context of matured adults, which sometimes can be hard to find due to the idiosyncratic nature how all of human are raised. We are often matured in one area like professional life or career, and significantly immature in another like sex and personal/relationship. Sometimes truth said to us in those "armatured" area of our may occurs as Verbl abuse. I think any one who has had a good acting course will know this. The simple point may be best explain by this proverb: "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Oh and I don't read reddit.
pstack 13y ago
It needs to be "gender" if they are extending these opportunities to people who identify as female, regardless of biology.

Joeboy 13y ago

> I don't think any European here would disagree. The fact that you categorise someone as "black" is just awful. I'm from the UK, and I'm mystified as to why you think that. > Are southern Italians black? What about Turks? ... See the problem? I see what the problem would be if the programme organizers were seeking to police the gender / ethnicity of attendees, but my guess is it's probably open to anybody who identifies as a black girl. Irrelevant grammatical aside: Why is somebody who attends something an attendee, not an attender?

pixelcort 13y ago
An attender is someone to attends to the attendees. The other meaning of attend: to take care of, to look after.

eliteraspberrie 13y ago

In Europe, in general, a more accurate analogy would be "Roma Girls Code."

Zenst 13y ago

I tend too agree, there again I'd disagree on any form of descrimination, sex included and let us not touch upon the implied age factor as well. Fact is there are many EU `groups` that have black in the title and not deemed racist by law - good example would be the Black Police association http://www.nbpa.co.uk/ http://www.nbpa.co.uk/ . Now there might not be a White Police association and with that again is another product of dealing with descrimination and yet at the same time sets a bad example without intent. One way to look at this is would people be equaly or less offended if it said "White" instead of Black and with that why not stop there and have "Yellow", "Brown", see when you do that it starts to stand out as more offencive than having "Black" and that is perhaps a whole avenue of psycology than I'm up for. In short I personaly think it and any descrimination that you have no control over is wrong, you can't pick your skin colour or gender and with that any form of descrimination be it positive or negative is setting a bad example in society when it is only trying to restore balance albiet in a way that creates inbalance in a form it is trying to prevent. Still for every rule there is an exception, least programming teaches this.

clarkm 13y ago
Just because there is an organization with that in the name doesn't mean it can't be offensive. You know what NAACP stands for, right?
- Zenst 13y ago
  In these times you can find at least somebody offended by anything in some way or another. No idea what NAACP stands for but suspect it is not a European thing.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

fredsters_s 13y ago

Not true. In the UK the "NUS Black Students’ campaign represents the largest constituency of Black students in Europe and students of African, Asian, Arab and Caribbean descent, at a local and national level on all issues affecting Black students." http://www.nus.org.uk/en/who-we-are/how-we-work/black-students/ http://www.nus.org.uk/en/who-we-are/how-we-work/black-studen...

slurry 13y ago

I realize that it's difficult to understand another culture, especially one so very different and - honestly - so much more complex and sophisticated than one's own, as the United States is in comparison with Belgium. I realize that this is hard. Nevertheless let's try. We can do better, HN. We can do better than "this wouldn't fly in Belgium" as the top-rated comment. BTW: Belgium? Not historically a model for even-handed tolerance with respect to black people: https://www.google.com/search?q=king+leopold&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS466US466&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=2zG_UrPfM-PisASCvYDADQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=932#es_sm=122&espv=210&q=belgian+congo+hands&safe=off&tbm=isch&imgdii=_ https://www.google.com/search?q=king+leopold&safe=off&rlz=1C...

clarkm 13y ago
Another example of wildly different standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet AKA Black Pete. Yes, people in Belgium and The Netherlands still dress up in blackface during the Christmas season.

rak 13y ago

Why is being categorized as Black an inherently negative thing? You should really read up on how we historically used to be classified and categorized. > Are southern Italians black? What about Turks? No. Black typically refers to people who are indigenous members of the African diaspora. As it's been used in the west, it's not typically resting solely on complexion (e.g they had another set of nasty names for darker people from Europe and Asia). I understand this is highly contextual, and that there may be native categorizations that are similar to specific regions, but I hope this clarifies how it applies. > Just to put this into context: here, in Belgium, it's actually illegal to register someone's "race" (except for medical reasons). I'm still curious why this is considered progress. As I've seen it in other countries, it doesn't do much to address racial issues in a society. The elimination of a box on state forms doesn't mean that it's somehow removed or diminished in that society.