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Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:21:19 -0500
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_[PHP-DEV]_About_the_use_of_the_terms_master/slave_and_blac?=
 =?UTF-8?Q?klist,_proposal_to_replace.?=
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Mon, Jun 15, 2020, at 2:11 PM, G. P. B. wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 20:05, Lynn <kjarli@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 7:46 PM Alain D D Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > It is very easy to take offence when none is meant at all. One needs to
> > > look at intent.
> > >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm going to disagree here. It's not about intent, it's about impact. You
> > can have the best intentions with the worst results.
> >
> > When I read the replies here, it makes me sad. The comments come from a
> > place of white privilege and I'm sad to see that's how people think about
> > it.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Lynn
> >
> 
> What saddens me is that these terms are non issues, and think they do
> something for "good" when it's just a pat on the back without doing any
> tangible change to the world.
> 
> Case in point, from what I've seen mostly going around in the French
> community [1] is that the people who are actually concerned think it's
> woke and completely nonsensical. And I could argue the white-privelege
> here is to discuss these matters and imagine they would improve something.
> 
> For blacklist/whitelist the benefit of changing it is that we can use more
> descriptive terminology such as deny/block/disallow and their opposite
> depending on context, which probably is more accessible to non-native
> English speakers. And if one wants to change it this should be the angle.
> 
> However, I would argue that *if* when someone hears the word black the
> first thing which comes to their mind is race, then that makes them more
> of a racist and not the other people who use this with the well defined
> meaning. As such I would argue this is undermining the meaning of the
> word and pushing us towards an orwellian [2] state of the world.
> 
> Moreover, black does not always mean something is "bad", see martial
> arts where a black belt is synonymous with experience and a white belt
> means that you are a novice.
> 
> So instead of taking offence on behalf of a whole group and proposing
> changes which don't affect said group in any meaningful way while
> causing BC. Because if we decided to accept doing this, I shall start
> being offended about the usage of the word string as in French string
> means a thong and I imagine French women to be outraged that we
> (predominantly white males) casually talk about splitting or comparing
> strings.
> 
> Best
> 
> George P. Banyard
> 
> [1] https://twitter.com/jesuisundev/status/1269260740894117890
> [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe64p-QzhNE

I am so going to regret being in this thread, but...


Data point: My boss at work noted earlier that he'd reached out to some black women he knows to get their take; their response to him was that blacklist/whitelist did bother them, but "master branch" did not.

Of course, with GitHub now deciding to change its standards that is going to percolate to the rest of the industry sooner or later, regardless of whether it's a good idea or a stupid waste of time.  It's going to happen now.

It should be noted that a person saying "I am offended" does not, in fact, make something automatically offensive, or that you should always assume that their position is right, or justified, or that you should take action as a result.  As evidence, I cite that I find "Native American" offensive because it implies one group of people is truly "from" a place rightly, and no one else is no matter how long they've been here; that's despite the fact that every group of people everywhere in history has moved around, a lot, and no one is "native" to anywhere if you go back far enough, and genetic groups and cultural groups migrate independently of each other (much as we like to to pretend otherwise).  In fact the term isn't even preferred by the people it refers to[1].  But no one listens to me, because I'm not in a group that's allowed to be offended.  There's way more politics around "offense" than anyone is willing to admit.  (And that's not a left or right specific issue.)

Also, point of order to Ben: Free Software is political[2].  Open Source was very specifically created to be the de-politicized, amoral version that companies could leverage without having to bother with that ethics stuff.  That's literally the history.  It's also why I support Free Software.  (Note: That attempt is largely unsuccessful because *all* software is inherently political, but credit where it's due, please.)

Having been through these conversations multiple times before, I would urge everyone to keep in mind the following:

1) As Nikita said, without an actionable todo item to discuss, there's nothing productive to discuss.

2) If you are able to find a reason for a change other than "because it's offensive not to," do it, and push that angle.  Make the political angle secondary.  It makes it more palatable.

3) For the love of God, do not go into this or similar discussions assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is a bad person.  I know it's hard, especially on touchy topics, but that is how communication dies.  Wanting to change whitelist/blacklist does *not* make someone a troublemaker just trying to cause trouble for little value.  Opposing that same change does *not* make someone racist, or uncaring, or "OMG privilege so we don't have to listen to you," or whatever.  I've seen that pattern appear way the hell too many times, and it's toxic, and does nothing but poison communities.

4) Let's all understand that language changes like this are at best broken window policing, and I use that term very deliberately.  If you really care about addressing persistent inequality in the world. get your butt out to a Black Lives Matter march, write your legislator, join a reform group, work on hiring practices in your own company, or do something else that requires actual work.  That goes for everyone.

5) Acknowledge that there are very likely a lot of people on this list who are doing the things in point 4 already, but still oppose the language changes.  Whether you agree with them or not, that's an acceptable and valid position for them to take.  Please respect that.

[1] https://youtu.be/kh88fVP2FWQ
[2] https://peakd.com/programming/@crell/free-software-is-political

--Larry Garfield