This is truly unfortunate. The current trend of whitewashing (and no
I'm not afraid of using a word with "white" in it) away perceived slurs
where there never were any is both troubling and counter-productive.
I shouldn't have to post something like this here. We should all be
adults and intelligent enough to understand these things. The fact that
I have to is also troubling. I find myself shocked and amazed that
these facts are not self evident. But since they clearly aren't, here
they are:
1) White_____ / Black_____ are not now and nor ever were they racially
motivated compound word prefixes. White and black have been and are
references to light and dark, and in every language race and culture on
the planet are used in compound words, phrases and sentences that evoke
metaphors of good and bad. In this context the prefixes have never had
anything to do with skin colour, and to change the words now casts
aspersions on everyone who has ever used them. It's a backusation of
prejudice that has just never been there. White hat / black hat. Light
and dark. Good and bad. The terms "whitelist" and "blacklist" came
into being because they are based on universally understood concepts of
light and dark. You are not going to change the concepts of "light" and
"dark" as metaphors for good and bad - the light and goodness of day and
the frightening aspects of night are etched into our collective racial
and likely genetic memories as good and bad from long before there ever
were humans with different skin colours. Treating whitelist and
blacklist as if they are skin-colour related is factually incorrect.
2) Master and slave are also not racially motivated. I don't have to
recapitulate the history of the lasts two centuries, we all know it, but
lets go further back... two millennia and further. Every conquering
culture made slaves of a certain number of its prisoners and vanquished
foes. Every colour and race in history has done this to every other
colour and race. The words are not inherently racially charged. They
are simple references to states. Further more, master and slave are
proper and accurate words to use in many cases outside of a context of
actual human slavery. Master denotes (variously) leadership, authority,
skillfulness, and control. Slave denotes subservience and being
controlled. You cannot erase the concepts of authority and subservience
in their entirety because some people once assumed immoral authority
over others. Changing the words you use will not change the underlying
concept, and treating the words like they are racially charged now is,
again, a backusation that is unwarranted and frankly an affront to all
who have ever used them properly. Are we going to change the rank of
master chief, stop having master cylinders, are going to stop mastering
skills? I sincerely hope this madness doesn't spread that far. The
words are not evil. The concepts of master and slave are not even evil.
They are simple word tools for the ease of understanding concepts and
relationships. Unless you intend to erase the whole concept of
hierarchical relationships, the word choices used to denote them can't
make them less racial because they never were.
3) The act of changing these words is, itself, actively self defeating.
The irony of changing words that never were racial on the off chance
they might be interpreted that way as a method of getting to a world
where race doesn't matter is acute. Please tell me I am not the only
one to see this terrible irony. We are all looking for that world where
race and colour simply don't matter. Where the colour of one's skin and
the culture one is from is of no more interest than any other fact or
statistic about one's individual phenotypes or family history. Taking
words and shining a spotlight on them as suddenly racial is a step away
from that world of "it just doesn't matter". It is an affront to the
(what I hopefully believe is the) majority of people of all races and
cultures for whom colour simply doesn't matter. And it is making a
racial issue where there was none before. This isn't a step in the
right direction. This is not accomplishing that goal. This is the
opposite of accomplishing that goal.
This action is wrong because it cannot accomplish its stated goal. This
is wrong because it is making racial what was not. This is wrong
because the connotations you giving the words are factually and
historically incorrect. This is wrong, and that should be self evident
to every single one of you.
Kurt Fitzner
On 2020-07-10 01:00, Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
> IMPORTANT NOTICE
>
> If you are running trunk, we are working on changing terms like whitelist to welcomelist and blacklist to blocklist.
>
> https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=7826
>
> The first test of this work is done with allowlist_to replacing whitelist_to
> Committed revision 1879456.
>
> If you are using trunk, there may be disruption since routines, plugins and rule changes will all interweave.
>
> IF YOU ARE RUNNING TRUNK: I RECOMMEND YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE DEV@SPAMASSASSIN.APACHE.ORG MAILING LIST TO STAY ABREAST OF THE CHANGES.
>
> Please let me know if you have any questions!
>
> Regards,
> KAM
>
> --
> Kevin A. McGrail
> Member, Apache Software Foundation
> Chair Emeritus Apache SpamAssassin Project
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmcgrail - 703.798.0171
I'm not afraid of using a word with "white" in it) away perceived slurs
where there never were any is both troubling and counter-productive.
I shouldn't have to post something like this here. We should all be
adults and intelligent enough to understand these things. The fact that
I have to is also troubling. I find myself shocked and amazed that
these facts are not self evident. But since they clearly aren't, here
they are:
1) White_____ / Black_____ are not now and nor ever were they racially
motivated compound word prefixes. White and black have been and are
references to light and dark, and in every language race and culture on
the planet are used in compound words, phrases and sentences that evoke
metaphors of good and bad. In this context the prefixes have never had
anything to do with skin colour, and to change the words now casts
aspersions on everyone who has ever used them. It's a backusation of
prejudice that has just never been there. White hat / black hat. Light
and dark. Good and bad. The terms "whitelist" and "blacklist" came
into being because they are based on universally understood concepts of
light and dark. You are not going to change the concepts of "light" and
"dark" as metaphors for good and bad - the light and goodness of day and
the frightening aspects of night are etched into our collective racial
and likely genetic memories as good and bad from long before there ever
were humans with different skin colours. Treating whitelist and
blacklist as if they are skin-colour related is factually incorrect.
2) Master and slave are also not racially motivated. I don't have to
recapitulate the history of the lasts two centuries, we all know it, but
lets go further back... two millennia and further. Every conquering
culture made slaves of a certain number of its prisoners and vanquished
foes. Every colour and race in history has done this to every other
colour and race. The words are not inherently racially charged. They
are simple references to states. Further more, master and slave are
proper and accurate words to use in many cases outside of a context of
actual human slavery. Master denotes (variously) leadership, authority,
skillfulness, and control. Slave denotes subservience and being
controlled. You cannot erase the concepts of authority and subservience
in their entirety because some people once assumed immoral authority
over others. Changing the words you use will not change the underlying
concept, and treating the words like they are racially charged now is,
again, a backusation that is unwarranted and frankly an affront to all
who have ever used them properly. Are we going to change the rank of
master chief, stop having master cylinders, are going to stop mastering
skills? I sincerely hope this madness doesn't spread that far. The
words are not evil. The concepts of master and slave are not even evil.
They are simple word tools for the ease of understanding concepts and
relationships. Unless you intend to erase the whole concept of
hierarchical relationships, the word choices used to denote them can't
make them less racial because they never were.
3) The act of changing these words is, itself, actively self defeating.
The irony of changing words that never were racial on the off chance
they might be interpreted that way as a method of getting to a world
where race doesn't matter is acute. Please tell me I am not the only
one to see this terrible irony. We are all looking for that world where
race and colour simply don't matter. Where the colour of one's skin and
the culture one is from is of no more interest than any other fact or
statistic about one's individual phenotypes or family history. Taking
words and shining a spotlight on them as suddenly racial is a step away
from that world of "it just doesn't matter". It is an affront to the
(what I hopefully believe is the) majority of people of all races and
cultures for whom colour simply doesn't matter. And it is making a
racial issue where there was none before. This isn't a step in the
right direction. This is not accomplishing that goal. This is the
opposite of accomplishing that goal.
This action is wrong because it cannot accomplish its stated goal. This
is wrong because it is making racial what was not. This is wrong
because the connotations you giving the words are factually and
historically incorrect. This is wrong, and that should be self evident
to every single one of you.
Kurt Fitzner
On 2020-07-10 01:00, Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
> IMPORTANT NOTICE
>
> If you are running trunk, we are working on changing terms like whitelist to welcomelist and blacklist to blocklist.
>
> https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=7826
>
> The first test of this work is done with allowlist_to replacing whitelist_to
> Committed revision 1879456.
>
> If you are using trunk, there may be disruption since routines, plugins and rule changes will all interweave.
>
> IF YOU ARE RUNNING TRUNK: I RECOMMEND YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE DEV@SPAMASSASSIN.APACHE.ORG MAILING LIST TO STAY ABREAST OF THE CHANGES.
>
> Please let me know if you have any questions!
>
> Regards,
> KAM
>
> --
> Kevin A. McGrail
> Member, Apache Software Foundation
> Chair Emeritus Apache SpamAssassin Project
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmcgrail - 703.798.0171