Hello,
Am 16.06.2020 um 07:43 schrieb Marc Balmer:
Am 16.06.2020 um 04:53 schrieb Mayuresh <mayur...@acm.org>:
On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 03:44:22PM -0400, Christos Zoulas wrote:
We should be all doing whatever we can to correct social/race/gender/sex
injustices/prejudices around us, and every little bit helps.
I am a great fan of bla^Hocklistd and I'd be happily using it even if you
name it say timbuktud.
But I think we are stretching above argument a bit too far. By any stretch
of imagination I couldn't find any trace of racist link in a very commonly
used word in Comp Sc like blacklist. Even tried searching its origin[1]
and doesn't look like it has anything to do with any race.
Just a quick grep in an arbitrary snapshot of the source tree of NetBSD
shows the word 'black' appearing at 4146 places...
There are `blackholes', `blackballs', `blacklist' (other than in
bla^Hocklistd's code), blackfin (of course some like this are not names
chosen by NetBSD but of 3rd party hardware, such as a processor or a
company name), `black magic', `blackjack', `blackboard', `blackbook',
`blackbox', `blackcrow', `blackberry', `black cathedral', `black
helicopter', `black tree' ...
And I am done only with 6% of the grep output.
Well, obviously anything with the word black in it must be considered racist
these days.
I think it's not about words that contain "black", but because of their
meaning put "black" in a negative context. Blackberry, for example, does
not serve the negative connection - except for those who do not like the
fruit. Or if, as a shareholder, you didn't make the jump in 2008.
Blacklist discriminates over color. I admit - I've never thought about
that either. And my very first reaction yesterday was also rather mixed
- I hadn't expected such discussions on a technical mailing list of my
favorite operating system, and I hadn't missed it either. However - I
first read what others have to say about it and there were some
interesting facts that convinced me that such discussions are important
on the one hand and that it is also right to use language more carefully.
Finally, a personal remark: I am pleased that it is possible in NetBSD
to hold such discussions at such a high level and without personal
insults! That makes it a great operating system with a great community
again!
Kind regards
Matthias