> Some radical people have suddenly started to think blacklist and whitelist are racially insensitive. Are they really racist words? The answer is a no.<p>In my books, these people aren't "radical", they're simply "wrong".<p>Calling them "radical" gives the impression that being mindful about the language we choose to accept socially is in general radical. Of course it isn't.
I'm not against the idea of inclusive language in general, but given that companies and projects have limited resources, I'm not convinced the level of impact on diversity and inclusion is worth the level of effort that seems to go into it. I'd rather see people creating apprenticeship roles and/or sourcing interns from non-traditional sources if we really want to see change. There's probably an untapped resource pool in every city of smart, talented highschool kids in disadvantage school that don't have any current pathway into tech, and giving them that onramp will do more for D&I than inclusive language.
Not but it has racist connotations, you really want to go out of your way to educate everyone on the etymology of a word because of an antiwoke crusade?<p>It is the same reason that polite people don't continue to use the word, "niggardly".
It's not, but insisting on using it even though there are perfectly fine alternatives and you know that there's a sizeable chunk of people that considers it racist is just being an asshole.