[racked]

It really is not about that. The problem is that some people feel the need to bend over backwards, making symbolic gestures that do not change the underlying issue. As if renaming 'whitelist' to 'allowlist' is going to turn any neo-nazis into angels.

George Carlin had a word or two to say about this phenomenon: https://youtu.be/hSp8IyaKCs0

[thereare5lights]

> As if renaming 'whitelist' to 'allowlist' is going to turn any neo-nazis into angels.

As if that's the point?

What do you think a hostile workplace is? Do you think being consistently subjected to verbiage that negatively impacts your mental health is a good thing?

Seems odd to me that so many people want to hold onto things that hurt other people and justify it by saying it doesn't solve anything despite the fact that those people are telling you that it will help them.

[padjo]

I don’t think the idea is to convert neo-nazis. People feel pretty powerless to help fight racism and doing small things like this help them feel a bit better.

Also, changing language that explicitly says “white good”, “black bad” can’t really hurt. It takes very little effort and “allow list” is actually clearer anyway.

[richbell]

> Also, changing language that explicitly says “white good”, “black bad” can’t really hurt. It takes very little effort and “allow list” is actually clearer anyway.

That isn't what they say at all. The only way that argument holds any water is with profound ignorance.

It's the same line of thinking as saying that "red team" is offensive because "red" used to be a derogatory term for native Americans. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

[padjo]

So why do we exclusively use blacklist to refer to bad things we want to exclude?

[nec4b]

For the same reason black card is considered exclusive and prestigious. Maybe you are the problem, associating everything with race and in if in your mind black is inferior, then everything using black as an adjective would be negative for you.

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

This is the point you can never get through to them.

The word itself isn't negative. It's usage _may_ be negative, but if you think the word itself is negative then you're the racist one.

[cutemonster]

It's originally from England, hundreds of years ago, not US history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting

[tticvs]

But it does hurt since it equates anti-racism with meaningless nonsense therefore directly undermining the purported cause.

Unless of course the real motivation isn't to help but instead to demonstrate power and status...