Wow, while I can perhaps understand perhaps why the repository owner, given that he's not from the US (according to his Github) and lacking the historical background, could think that the fact that closing the issue with the comment "I don't want to touch this controversial issue" might actually be a neutral approach (it's not, he touched the issue when he chose the name in 2018, perhaps later if he heard about twitter and other companies explicitly choosing not to use this term anymore and finally now, when he had a chance to explain his possible blind spot, but instead chose to look aside).
That I can (maybe) understand, but every other commenter is intentionally toxic in a way I've never on open source projects.
> I think you might be the one lacking the historical background. Blacklist comes from King Henry and his list of political enemies.
1. You seem to assume that historical background is synonymous with "words first origin". By historical background I meant to refer to not being fully aware of just how much racism toward black Americans was and is still present everywhere. I say so as a non-American myself. It's not present in your every day, one cannot fully grasp it.
2. While the term Blacklist does not originate from colonialism, it seems to have first been used in the 1639 tragedy "The Unnatural Combat" by Philip Massinger.
3. Not only did I not find any evidences supporting your fun "fact" about "King Henry and his enemies", the name Henry was quite popular as far as kings go, but non of them even lived in the 17th century according to this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_named_Henry
4. Back to the term - while blacklist _origin_ has nothing to do with racism, it's counterpart, "white list" was first used in the mid 19th century (not sure where it was first used exactly) - while the people who made these terms popular in the 20th century perhaps were not racist, they also were also did not think about how black people would feel about labeling white with "allow" and black with "reject", and I while I can't hold it against them since it might have been different times, the fact that some people are trying so hard to keep using these words, despite being triggering toward some people is hard for me to understand without making cynical assumptions about their motives.
> I find realpoliticking innocous words to be toxic and problematic.
While I'm not sure what Realpolitik has to do with any of it, but your issues with it, whether justified or not, do not make the comments on that issue any less toxic.
Forgive me but instead of bouncing between threads I'm just going to condense to this one.
Yes, racism is real. Racism has been a part of history. Racism still exists today.
What does the word "Blacklist" have to do with that? It's not about black people, it's not suggesting we should do anything to black people. We can all agree there are racist words - but why is "blacklist" one of them?
Is "blacklight" a racist term?
"Yellow" means caution or slow in most contexts. It's the color of safety vests and caution signs. Should Asians take offense? What about native peoples with the color "Red"?
This blacklist (and "master") nonsense is based on a fake story about the term that doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and the idea that Black people may have negative feelings to this fake story. I believe the term here is "the racism of soft expectations".
You can't create a lie and then demand conformance to that lie because "you may upset someone". Atheists were persecuted for a long time in history (as were many smaller religious groups) because they were considered "offensive".
The word policing goal is simple - it's control. Language gives the means of expression and to restrict language is to restrict expression. The word banning will not stop - "blacklist", "master", "brown bag", "black belt", "assault", "war". All of those have been banned by one of these lists - and it has nothing to do with helping any race.
> it's not suggesting we should do anything to black people
Should I provide you with a list of racial slurs that do not suggest to do something to a minority?
> "Yellow" means caution or slow in most contexts. It's the color of safety vests and caution signs. Should Asians take offense? What about native peoples
I'm sure you can educate yourself with the reasons why semaphores are colored the way they are. Such reasoning do not hold for blacklist and whitelist.
Also you do realize that Asian people and Native Americans do not identify as Yellow or Red, right?
Black people do identify as such, and labeling white and black as allow/reject would have never made so popular if black people weren't so under represented in the software industry in the first place, so yes, lack of inclusion in the first place is the racial influence that allowed these terms to become popular in the software industry, and now that people are trying to change that with a better term. Again, language is a dynamic thing, embrace that.
I don't blame white men for introducing these terms early into software development. One cannot be fully aware of the weight their words carry, but language is a dynamic creature, and should adapt for all kind of reason.
You have a group that you want to include and is affected by a term that's triggering for them, there is an alternative that's just as short and pass it's meaning better (allow-list, reject-list), and sill you seem to argue against replacing it with nothing but "it's original usage was not racial"
> This blacklist (and "master") nonsense is based on a fake story about the term that doesn't hold up under scrutiny
The only fake story so far is your story about "King Henry and his enemies".
You're doing a great effort to enforce terms that have no advantage in terms of semantics and clear disadvantages when it comes to inclusion, but now that I see that you'd support even terms such as master/slave it's quite clear you don't really care about the historical background at all.
> Atheists were persecuted for a long time in history (as were many smaller religious groups) because they were considered "offensive".
Dude, you're comparing persecution of minorities (atheist) due to who they are and their beliefs to... replacing one term for another so that you can make a minority group feel more included.
> You can't create a lie and then demand conformance to that lie
How is "King Henry and his enemies"? I'm still waiting to hear a better version of the story, surely you didn't just say that I'm "the one lacking the historical background" for no reason, did you?
That I can (maybe) understand, but every other commenter is intentionally toxic in a way I've never on open source projects.