Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
> On 7/21/2020 9:25 PM, Loren Wilton wrote:
>> I do strongly wonder whether this is "society" or only "people in the
>> USA".
> One data point disproves that.? The SA project made the choice months
> ago inspired by a decision in the United Kingdom:
>
https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-ncsc-to-stop-using-whitelist-and-blacklist- due-to-racial-stereotyping/
I've stayed out of this until now because I understand what you are trying
to do, but this was not an issue of race until those who (just like the
article) made it so.
I am a white male aged 62 who grew up in the 60's and 70's in a very
racially integrated area of a very poor part of a decent sized Midwest
united states city in Indiana. I went through the forced integration bussing
in a junior high school that mainly consisted of poor "white trash" lower
income white families. There really wasn't much tension in the school system
until poor lower income black students were forced to be bussed in along
with wealthy upper class white students from other schools. The black
students raised holy hell (riots and all) because they were forced out of
their schools and the well to do white students were nearly as bad for
exactly the same reason and we (the original group of lower class whites
students) were pissed because we had to deal with pissed off kids from both
spectrums. This was not a problem until people forced a non issue into a
boiling point issue. Being one of the poorest "white trash" families in the
school in the first place and having been raised to see race as a non issue
I had friends in all three of the spheres and most of them just wanted
things stop and didn't understand what the fuss was all about, they were
fine with things as they had been. You know where none of this EVER crept
in? Athletics... All those involved in athletics just wanted winning teams
and didn't give a rats ass about what color the guy was playing next to them
only that they performed. The problem wasn't integration of kids it was
making sure each school had access to the same resources, that neighborhoods
were naturally integrated and no barrier existed to the flow of people based
on color, race or religion. Forcing those kids out of their neighborhood
school did nothing positive because they still went home at the end of the
day (and took longer to get there) and their position in life remained the
same (other than seeing all the nice things the wealthy kids had I guess).
They were still poor and black, I was still poor and white and the tension
and resulting violence just took a chunk of our childhood to a place it
didn't need to go.
Now, white and black lists were not a racially charged item until someone,
likely white guy but I don't know, made it so. I have asked my colleagues of
all races what they think about this and linux's new issues with the terms
black and white list and, especially the black persons find it somewhat
insulting.
Black and white have been the representation of pure good and evil since man
kind found a way out of the dark. Dark was bad, you were more likely to be
hunted in the dark, light was good as you were far safer hence black magic
bad white magic good and most cultures who believe in the two are of dark
skin. Certainly the black west African practitioners of voodoo (common term
for several related religions) knew they were of black skin when they
assigned black magic to magic used for harmful purpose while white magic was
used for good and healing... It was just light and dark and that is what the
terms white and black are used for.
How about blackballing? Remember McCarthy blackballing people in the 50's...
Had nothing to do with color then or now. Why is the Sabbath preceding Tisha
B?Av referred to as Black Sabbath? Nothing to do with skin color.
I won't speak of this again but this entire overreaction to race issues
literally feeds the flame every bit as much as black rappers using the
*nword* as their own continues to feed the use of the word. I had hoped
during my life time that word would be gone but it's clear from this
discussion that people cannot just simply decide not to engage in racist
behavior and stop emphasizing trouble where an issue doesn't exist until you
make it an issue. I do not believe a single person of color on this list
ever once looked at the terms white and black list and saw a race issue and
if they did, this will not solve their actual personal problems.