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by AHappyCamper 2188 days ago
We were dealing with life and death situations. The pressure is beyond intense. If you mess up, a girl will be locked in a cave for much of her life. It's not a "calm" environment where you can nitpick every term for political correctness. You just need to convey the info that you need.

Re raising awareness, there is no way to say "We're trying to stop slavery in the Middle East and shut down the human Black Markets" without offending someone.
2 comments
clort 2188 days ago
I appreciate your concern about the naming and I think you are right to have that concern. The problem with this (to be obvious) is that 'black' is being used as an perjorative because there are good markets and bad markets but the good ones don't have an adjective, and 'black' is an attribute which is also used to describe people who are born with darker skin (perhaps unavoidably so, for the forseeable future).

Is there a reason can't you just call this a Slave Market ? I mean, wikipedia has a page entitled just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_market. If you wish to disambiguate from historical you could add 'modern', 'contemporary', 'underground', or 'secret' very easily.

As to the location, it might be the case that the middle east is where you were involved, but I rather suspect that a) not all the slaves sold remain in that area and b) this does not only happen in that area. Certainly I have read of modern slavery occurring here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. I have certainly read of women from China, Nigeria and Eastern European countries for instance, being trafficked for prostitution in recent years and I'm pretty sure that this is not the whole story. You are doing great work[0] actively working against slavery, right? If your organisation were successful in the middle east, would it then simply close down?

[0] and thank you for that.

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marcus_holmes 2188 days ago
Sorry, I don't understand this at all.

You really can't spend the 30 seconds needed to think about "hmm, maybe be a bit careful about the words I'm using here in case my message gets lost in criticism of my language"?

As others have said, finding a non-offensive synonym for "Black market" takes a single search, about 5 seconds. Is it really that time-critical? Where are you sending these messages that those 30 seconds are "life or death" yet they're spread widely enough to be potentially offensive?

"messing up" involves what, exactly? Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

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julianmarq 2188 days ago
> You really can't spend the 30 seconds needed to think about "hmm, maybe be a bit careful about the words I'm using here in case my message gets lost in criticism of my language"?

If I had thought there was a situation where "every second counts" was actually true, it would be human trafficking. You seem to disagree.

> Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

"Black market" is definitely a "racist" term now? GP only gave it as a potential example, or at least that's how I read it. The point is that wording the message like that is not actually going to divert attention. Except for the few people trying to police speech at every turn—and who will try to harm him over it—even though the message itself did its job (a far more helpful job than the people trying to police speech would ever do, for that matter).

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cglace 2188 days ago
Should we really have to research each word we use before using it?
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bluntfang 2188 days ago
It's important to know the meaning of the words you use. I can't believe I have to say that.
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cglace 2188 days ago
Are you being intentionally obtuse?

There is a difference in knowing the meaning of a word and knowing the myriad of ways a word can be perceived by your audience. One is very easy the other is a gargantuan task.

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marcus_holmes 2188 days ago
All communication is an attempt to create meaning in the mind of the listener. If you use words that the listener perceives to have a certain meaning, but that is not the meaning you intended to create, then your message will not communicate your meaning correctly.

In other words, all words are given meaning by the listener, not the speaker. Your intentions when saying something are irrelevant (but are usually taken into consideration because no communication is perfect).

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cglace 2188 days ago
If my intent does not matter and my words can be construed to mean anything then where do we go from here?
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