
GitHub plans to replace racially insensitive terms like ‘master’ and ‘whitelist’ - tdevito
https://thenextweb.com/dd/2020/06/15/github-plans-to-replace-racially-insensitive-terms-like-master-and-whitelist/
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mytailorisrich
'master' and 'whitelist' have nothing to do with race or racism.

It seems that some people are projecting their own prejudice onto unrelated
words and perhaps they should reflect on why they relate everything to race.

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rodw
If you're going to replace the terms "whitelist" and "blacklist", why not
consider making use of the actual definitions and use something like "include-
list" and "exclude-list"?

I'm not even necessarily a fan of that nomenclature, but I'm surprised that's
not one of the replacements that are considered (in the Twitter poll in the
article for example).

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sarcasmatwork
Getting out of hand.... It's not derogatory. This does nothing. _sigh_

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rodw
To be fair, I don't think the intent or the etymology of the words needs to be
derogatory or racial insensitive to justify changing the terms.

I think the argument is that "this word makes some people uncomfortable by
reminding them of something that may be emotionally charged for them", and
therefore basic decency says maybe we should avoid those terms. Especially for
groups that are under-represented in the field, which may well be validation
of the "makes people uncomfortable" bit.

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steve_taylor
Master means too many different things to remove it from English. For example:
_Master of Arts Degree in African-American Studies_

Its usage in git is inrelated to the master/slave metaphor. There are systems
that use that metaphor and they should chane. Git isn’t one of them.

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rodw
I'll take it one step farther: I'm guessing the original etymology wasn't even
master/slave but master/ _copy_. For that matter it's not obvious to me that
whilelist/blacklist was racially inspired. I assume it's more like "black
mark" -> "blacklist" -> "whitelist".

But you're missing the point. You can't rationalize your way out of an
emotional response. You can't talk people out of being disturbed or distracted
by the terms master/slave.

Rational or not, if we _know_ that this metaphor or phrasing makes a sizable
group of people uncomfortable, why would we continue to use it in technical
writing or source code? It's such a small "accommodation" to ask for.

