
Apple to remove, replace non-inclusive language in code base - alwillis
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/17/apple-to-remove-replace-non-inclusive-language-in-code-base
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sschueller
How about actually doing something about slavery or saying something about the
human rights abuses of your manufacturing HQs country?

This changes nothing other than give some developers a warm fuzzy feeling like
they did something. Like changing your avatar as a protest...

~~~
millstone
Obviously Apple's efforts go beyond renaming functions. See my other reply at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880163](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880163)

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occamrazor
They are also deprecating the terms “whitelist” and “blacklist”. In my mind I
never associated them to skin colour, but I’m not a native English speaker.
Does anybody know the origin of these terms? Is there any semantic link to
race?

~~~
Normille
It's a very very old cultural association, dating back to primitive times
where people were literally 'afraid of the dark'. So Day = Light = Good and
Night = Dark = Bad. Night-time is associated with mystery, fear, ignorance,
demons, devils, 'creatures of the dark' etc and Day-time is associated with
rebirth, new life, positivity, understanding etc.

Of course none of that resonates with the self-flagellating virtue signallers,
whose cultural awareness extends about as far back as last week and who assume
every reference to 'Black' must be due to 'whitey' being incorrigibly racist.

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nisuni
There are places in the world where slavery is still a thing, unfortunately,
and they clean their conscience by replacing a few words in their codebase.

Slacktivism at its finest!

~~~
millstone
Here is Apple's 2019 report on "Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking and
Slavery in Our Business and Supply Chains."

[https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-
Comb...](https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Combat-Human-
Trafficking-and-Slavery-in-Supply-Chain-2019.pdf)

~~~
nisuni
I am not necessarily speaking about human trafficking in theie supply chain.

I am talking about redirecting your efforts towards issues that have a real
impact. Does Apple want to do something about slavery, some philanthropic
gesture? There are thousands of things that are more effective than replacing
a few words in the codebase. But maybe they wouldn't grant as much publicity
as this PR stunt does.

~~~
millstone
Yes, Apple does those things, which are detailed in the link.

A short blurb titled "Updates to Coding Terminology" on a site aimed at
developers is not a PR stunt.

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prohobo
This topic has been beaten to death, and most people already know where they
stand on this topic, but I'd just like to add one thing:

I think it's becoming clear that the people pushing for these kinds of changes
are likely racist. Weird, but hear me out...

Trauma can taint anything to be seen as dangerous or bad (an example would be
people who are triggered by clowns), but victims of trauma usually also
understand that their phobic reactions aren't necessarily representative of
the real world. They don't expect others to reconfigure reality to keep them
from being triggered, except maybe on an individual level, with the
understanding that one party willingly deceives or hides things from the other
to help them cope.

This is not that, because the people implementing the changes don't harbor the
related trauma (by their own admission), nor do they acknowledge the deceit.
They are instead motivated by prejudice.

There may be an innocuous question like "how do we become more inclusive?" and
they see a term like "blacklist", knowing its basic negative connotation, then
mistakenly correlate that to _black people_. This is a racist mental
connection, and it's similar to how someone might see the word "dyke" and
think lesbian, even when it's being used in the context of its true meaning: a
sea embankment. This is fine though, most people can simply remind themselves
of this fact and move on. Furthermore, most people also understand the general
origin of their misconception, and can tell when it's something they
personally believe, or something that has been drilled into their heads
through repetitive exposure.

These people, however, are unable to separate the reality from their own
prejudices, and so believe that their interpretation is real. "The term
'blacklist' must be problematic for black people, because we all know that
deep down it's saying we want to ban black people, right?"

A non-racist without exposure to the supposed problem with saying 'blacklist'
_won 't make the racist connection_.

A racist without exposure to the supposed problem with saying 'blacklist'
_will assume it has racial subtext_.

A non-racist who has been exposed to the supposed problem with saying
'blacklist' _will correctly separate their misconception with the truth, and
reject the supposed racial subtext_.

~~~
jhardy54
No. The term 'blacklist' deprecated because it contains the color 'black',
it's deprecated because it uses 'black' to mean 'not allowed'. This really
shouldn't be so controversial, just use words that accurately describe what
you mean.

~~~
prohobo
That's a very disingenuous claim, since this is obviously political, not about
clarity. Or, do you mean it's being changed because of the use of "black"
specifically? In which case that's not being questioned here, we're talking
about why they see "black" as a specifically racial color.

~~~
jhardy54
> In which case that's not being questioned here, we're talking about why they
> see "black" as a specifically racial color.

You can't think of why that might be?

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thiscatis
This is beyond embarrassing, do something real instead.

~~~
bzb3
Doing something real actually takes effort.

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lazyjones
I don't like the slippery slope fallacy in general, but with this topic I am
really asking myself how things will develop eventually. Will colors be
outlawed, to be replaced by wavelength numbers? Will hierarchies of all sorts
be forbidden? How will we be able to make movies or write books or computer
games about historic events?

~~~
Normille
As I said in another comment on another thread, which naturally got downvoted
into oblivion, we are rapidly heading into an Orwellian word where the
language becomes so loaded and politicised that it will soon be impossible to
use certain formerly innocuous words, because they'll be seen as too
offensive.

As I said then. Maybe we should just replace the word 'Black' throughout the
English language with 'Double-Plus-Un-White' and have done with it?

~~~
alwillis
There's nothing wrong with the word black.

Something seems wrong with using the terminology “master/slave” in the 21st
century when we mean “primary/secondary” or “default/dev” when using version
control software.

~~~
lazyjones
> _There 's nothing wrong with the word black._

It's negatively connoted in many places. In German for example, fare jumpers
are "black riders", people who don't pay TV fees are "black viewers", illicit
money is "black money", pessimistic views are "seeing black" etc. etc. ...

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randyrand
this will do wonders for the black community.

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HomeDeLaPot
I want to see that regex.

