Does anyone know the etymology of "blacklist" or "whitelist"? To me, this would be a relevant factor in deciding whether the terms should be deprecated.
Not exactly what you asked for, but the Duden dictionary of the German language mentions for "schwarze Liste" (literally black list) that black refers to something which is secret, hidden, probably because of the association with darkness.
It's a very often encountered expression in many European languages.
I always assumed it was how light behaves. If you take white piece of acrylic, it passes light much better than if you were to just take a black piece of acrylic.
The etymology doesn't matter so much as long as the harm done now is real. I wrote this comment in a similar thread before, but I'll paste it here:
Historically, white/blacklist did not have racial origins, but history is always happening. The original intent of a word can be erased by its proximity to new taboos and new circumstances, and in this case, white/black have been racialized.
See also: the disappearance of the words "niggardly" and "feck" from common English usage, or how some Thais are uneasy using the word "fuk" (gourd, pumpkin) [0]
Hey old friend — good to see you here. I can understand that some people object to the terms regardless of etymology, but certainly the case for deprecation would be stronger if the etymology driven by or related to race.
Do you have any citations to the actual etymology? I wasn't able to find anything definitive.
> The etymology doesn't matter so much as long as the harm done now is real.
You declare that using blacklist/whitelist does harm, yet you provide no evidence. If it does, shouldn't the black belt being the highest grade (and the white belt the lowest) in Karate etc be a positive thing? Shouldn't the white flag being the sign of defeat, while pirates have cool flags that are mostly black really make the difference?
I'm sorry, but no, of course not. I see some (albeit very little, it feels more like avoidance coping, which is more harmful than dealing with your feelings) merit in "I don't want to hear the word slave, it triggers thoughts of the slavery somebody having a similar skin color as me had to go through", but blacklist/whitelist? Black hat? Black Death? Black Hole? No.
It has nothing to do with Africans, and going out of your way to create a connection where none exists for the sake of being offended feels like a mental health issue that needs to be addressed, not encouragement.
