Software going politically correct

[sherr]

Not sure your argument here is valid.  Surely a workplace that can tell it's people not to use black hat/white hat can also tell it's people to use 'pink' instead of 'white'.  It's not like the workplace has control over use of black hat/white hat terms in society, just as it doesn't have control over use of pink/white.  That shouldn't stop them from doing what they think is right.

Do you seriously think that is the "path of least resistance" on this issue, or just that it's technically possible? As far as "doing what they think is right": do black people seriously object to being called black and insist on brown instead, or do they just prefer that there weren't so many constant negative connotations with blackness all the time?

Industry and technical terms are one thing, but it seems pretty arrogant to think that you or I or the company can just "decide" things about "blackness".

[boy_bye]

What if instead of trying to call brown people who identify 'black' because of their brownness, we change 'white' people to 'pink' people instead?  This would be more socially acceptable, no?  And then we can leave all the many white/black comparisons because they wouldn't be racially comparable.  Nobody's worried about 'pink hat'/'black hat' comparisons, right?

Whether I am pink or red depends on how much time I've been in the sun. Also some people are actually black, for example:


But seriously, you're still doing the thing where you're proposing solutions that are beyond the circle of control of the people in question. OP's company can't convince society to switch to pink/brown. They can decide to stop using the terms "white/black hat". You can have high-minded discussions about what the optimal societal solution is beyond that, but to frame it as "this company's word-change list is wrong because" makes no sense.

First of all . . . that picture is crazy!


Not sure your argument here is valid.  Surely a workplace that can tell it's people not to use black hat/white hat can also tell it's people to use 'pink' instead of 'white'.  It's not like the workplace has control over use of black hat/white hat terms in society, just as it doesn't have control over use of pink/white.  That shouldn't stop them from doing what they think is right.

(I'd like to point out that I'm probably going to stop using the term black hat/white hat anyway . . . because apparently enough people think that it's offensive that this seems like a sensible way forward.  So I'm not wedded to the term or anything.  But the reasoning used to exclude it still seems really odd and somewhat misplaced to me.)

I'm glad to see the conclusion you've come to, but I also want to reiterate reasoning doesn't have to make sense to every single person. The function of privilege is to shield the privileged from truths that folks without that privilege have to deal with every day, so there are lots of things that as a white woman, I will never see or experience first-hand. The best I can do is listen and try to wrap my mind around what other people tell me they see.

Put another way, if someone tells me what I'm doing is hurting them, it's less important for me to get them to sell me on the fact that their perspective is valid than it is for me to just stop hurting them.

[GuitarStv]

Not sure your argument here is valid.  Surely a workplace that can tell it's people not to use black hat/white hat can also tell it's people to use 'pink' instead of 'white'.  It's not like the workplace has control over use of black hat/white hat terms in society, just as it doesn't have control over use of pink/white.  That shouldn't stop them from doing what they think is right.

Do you seriously think that is the "path of least resistance" on this issue, or just that it's technically possible?

Path of least resistance is to do nothing at all.  That went out the window the moment we started changing words based on people's feelings.

As far as "doing what they think is right": do black people seriously object to being called black and insist on brown instead, or do they just prefer that there weren't so many constant negative connotations with blackness all the time?

I'm obviously not equipped to speak for all black people everywhere.  My best friend (who died last year of lung cancer) was born in Trinidad and always referred to himself as 'brown'.  I think he would have been happiest with less overt racism in his life (like getting pulled over every couple weeks for several years while he was driving a bright red Camero - until he finally just sold the car), and a lot less concerned with 'black hat'/'white hat'.  He was in fact proud to be involved in white hat hacking and a full time software developer.  I really wish I could ask him if these terms had ever bothered him while he was working.

Industry and technical terms are one thing, but it seems pretty arrogant to think that you or I or the company can just "decide" things about "blackness".

It was already pointed out to me that telling brown/black people what they can call themselves is wrong.  That's why my proposal was to change what we call us pinkies!  It seemed like the least offensive way to go about doing something.

Isn't just deciding to blanket ban non-racist things because we think that people aren't going to be smart enough to know the difference also pretty arrogant on our or the companies part?

Put another way, if someone tells me what I'm doing is hurting them, it's less important for me to get them to sell me on the fact that their perspective is valid than it is for me to just stop hurting them.

This makes perfect sense to me.  I'm just unclear if people are really being hurt by the terms 'black hat' and 'white hat', or if this is an overreaction made by Sue or Bob in HR due to the current political climate.

[LWYRUP]

I prefer to identify as "light tan."  One of my kids is alabaster at best, though. 

[BECABECA]

But that's my whole point.

We don't have to undo the "white" = good and "black" = bad cultural trope that predates slavery in America by thousands of years.  There's actually nothing wrong with it.

We need to stop calling brown people "black" and pink people "white".  Leave the pre-existing cultural stuff alone.  Attack the problem from the source and stop misidentifying people . . . because it kinda seems like this black/white mis-identification came from an attempt to tie racism in to the "white" = good and "black" = bad thing that already existed.  So opt out of playing that racist game, rather than trying to dismantle a multi-century old existing cultural artifact bit by bit.

This same line of argument was used to oppose gay marriage: marriage had a long historical context of being between a man and a woman. Governments started applying rights to couples who were married. But instead of allowing governments to recognize gay marriages, we should stop governments from recognizing any marriages. All government rights to couples should be applied to a separate civil contract. It sounds great in theory, but in reality there’s no way the inertia required for this type of systemic change could happen in our lifetimes. It was just an argument that people who opposed gay marriage could make to seem like they weren’t just opposed due to bigotry.

I doubt that’s the message that you want to convey, but that’s how it’s reading to me.

[boy_bye]

Put another way, if someone tells me what I'm doing is hurting them, it's less important for me to get them to sell me on the fact that their perspective is valid than it is for me to just stop hurting them.

This makes perfect sense to me.  I'm just unclear if people are really being hurt by the terms 'black hat' and 'white hat', or if this is an overreaction made by Sue or Bob in HR due to the current political climate.

I don't know if anyone is specifically hurt by 'black hat' and 'white hat' and it's possible that HR is doing more than what's necessary. But I do think that we will all benefit from dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds.

[Psychstache]

There doesn't appear to be any downside to using less-colored terminology, except simply that it's a change and people are resistant to change of any sort.

See, here I kind of disagree.  Getting rid of black / white terminology reinforces the incorrect (and racist) use of black / white to denote skin colour that is neither black nor white.  That is a downside greater than what changing the terminology is supposed to resolve.

I'm not opposed to changing terms that we use, but think that we might be changing the wrong terms in haste.

Your proposed "better" solution - to stop using black / white as descriptors of skin color - requires a society-wide change and is definitely not within a software company's circle of control. They would look even more ridiculous taking that route.

They themselves not using the terms "black/white hat" is entirely within their control.

Black/white hat have nothing to do with race though.  No longer to use the terms certainly falls within the company's circle of control, but it fails to address the problem they're aiming for.

Says you. And the issue is not even really whether you're right or not, it's whether a reasonable person would assume that, same as the word "niggardly". When the issue is "people feeling comfortable at work", then to some degree "feels" do in fact equal "reals".

I think it's helpful in these cases to use my imagination to try to understand what other folks might be feeling.

For instance, imagine you are Black American, raised in this culture where, with few exceptions, "white" connotes goodness and "black" connotes badness. Can you imagine how irritating / upsetting it might be to have *your identity* so often used as shorthand for evil or excluded, throughout all parts of the culture from fairy tales to Western movies to literally lists of entities that your computer can and can't interact with? Especially in the context of widespread systemic racism in which we are living?

It doesn't matter where "White Hat/ Black Hat" came from -- it really doesn't. What matters is that it upholds and perpetuates the deep-seated cultural trope of "white" = good and "black" = bad. That cultural trope is the thing we are trying to undo here, regardless of where it came from.

We don't even have to imagine, here's an example of the impact directly from the GOAT (relevent section starts at about 55 seconds):

[John Galt incarnate!]

I'm not a linguist but I posit that the western world has been using dark as a shortcut for bad/danger since time immemorial. When most people tended to their crops their entire lives within a 30 mile radius of where they were born, not even knowing that there were black people in this world.

Night and darkness is scary, and universally so, which is why we film horror movies tend to be filmed in dark settings.

 I heard a black man (I think he was a comedian) speak of  devil's food cake that is dark brown  as an example of the association of darkness with things that are bad/scary/dangerous.

I thought his observation was on point especially since angel food cake is white.

[2Cent]

I hate this so much. Not because I'm so attached to specific terms, but because it feels so manipulative. Like 1984 new speak where the language is purged so that people will not be able to express or even think certain concepts.

And yet, what it is doing at this point is the opposite. Making people realize that words have consequences and should be thought about.

Just like folks have said here, most people don't think about "gypped" as being problematic, but it is. Learning that just might help people think and express themselves more clearly, not less.

True, it's going the other way. But it's still the same kind of manipulation. I'm very much against racism, but this doesn't actually help. It's looking at the world through a lens of race/colour so that everything must be an expression of racial relations. If people start adopting this view it will actually move away from the post racism colour-blind society we should strive for and instead amplifies the divide between groups. So when this kind of thinking is accepted, if anyone talks about white or black we have to think if any black people could be offended.

Removing Master/Slave I can kind of tolerate as slavery is an awful thing, although I think maybe we should be more offended that many electronics are partly made by actual slaves. But removing black/white is just ludicrous. It originates from darkness is dangerous light is safe. Just like red is hot, blue is cold. Banning black and white from our vocabulary or even getting triggered when it is used outside of the context of race will only amplify the idea that black and white people are two different groups who should be considered separately.

[BECABECA]

Put another way, if someone tells me what I'm doing is hurting them, it's less important for me to get them to sell me on the fact that their perspective is valid than it is for me to just stop hurting them.

This makes perfect sense to me.  I'm just unclear if people are really being hurt by the terms 'black hat' and 'white hat', or if this is an overreaction made by Sue or Bob in HR due to the current political climate.

I don't know if anyone is specifically hurt by 'black hat' and 'white hat' and it's possible that HR is doing more than what's necessary. But I do think that we will all benefit from dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds.

I saw a talk by racism scholar Ibram Kendi and I liked his definition of racism (pardon my paraphrasing): racist policies that lead to inequality that then gets justified by racist ideas.

So while black hat and white hat may not have originated in racism (I’m not convinced of this, but I’ll take it as given for the sake of this argument), continuing to use white hat and black hat perpetuates white = good and black = bad, which leads to inequality when an employee identifies as something that is equated with good while the other is equated with bad.

[LightTripper]

I think it's helpful in these cases to use my imagination to try to understand what other folks might be feeling.

For instance, imagine you are Black American, raised in this culture where, with few exceptions, "white" connotes goodness and "black" connotes badness. Can you imagine how irritating / upsetting it might be to have *your identity* so often used as shorthand for evil or excluded, throughout all parts of the culture from fairy tales to Western movies to literally lists of entities that your computer can and can't interact with? Especially in the context of widespread systemic racism in which we are living?

It doesn't matter where "White Hat/ Black Hat" came from -- it really doesn't. What matters is that it upholds and perpetuates the deep-seated cultural trope of "white" = good and "black" = bad. That cultural trope is the thing we are trying to undo here, regardless of where it came from.

Well this is exactly what I wanted to write, so thank you @madgeylou !

[boy_bye]

I hate this so much. Not because I'm so attached to specific terms, but because it feels so manipulative. Like 1984 new speak where the language is purged so that people will not be able to express or even think certain concepts.

And yet, what it is doing at this point is the opposite. Making people realize that words have consequences and should be thought about.

Just like folks have said here, most people don't think about "gypped" as being problematic, but it is. Learning that just might help people think and express themselves more clearly, not less.

True, it's going the other way. But it's still the same kind of manipulation. I'm very much against racism, but this doesn't actually help. It's looking at the world through a lens of race/colour so that everything must be an expression of racial relations. If people start adopting this view it will actually move away from the post racism colour-blind society we should strive for and instead amplifies the divide between groups. So when this kind of thinking is accepted, if anyone talks about white or black we have to think if any black people could be offended.

Removing Master/Slave I can kind of tolerate as slavery is an awful thing, although I think maybe we should be more offended that many electronics are partly made by actual slaves. But removing black/white is just ludicrous. It originates from darkness is dangerous light is safe. Just like red is hot, blue is cold. Banning black and white from our vocabulary or even getting triggered when it is used outside of the context of race will only amplify the idea that black and white people are two different groups who should be considered separately.

First point: For non-white people, interactions with the dominant culture in the US are often-to-always colored by race anyway. It's usually only white people who want "color blindness." Black folks and non-black people of color mostly just want to be treated fairly, not have others pretend that they aren't Black or Indian or Puerto Rican or whatever. The idea is to EMBRACE differences, not erase them.

Second point: No one is calling for the banning of the words "white" and "black." As has been stated many times on this thread and yet seems to be willingly misunderstood by many, the request is to rethink the connotations that "white" means good, clean, angelic, etc. and "black" means bad, dirty, demonic, etc. We probably can't remove these connotations 100% but we can be more thoughtful about how we use these words and, in doing so, remove a lot of the harm they cause.

[GuitarStv]

I hate this so much. Not because I'm so attached to specific terms, but because it feels so manipulative. Like 1984 new speak where the language is purged so that people will not be able to express or even think certain concepts.

And yet, what it is doing at this point is the opposite. Making people realize that words have consequences and should be thought about.

Just like folks have said here, most people don't think about "gypped" as being problematic, but it is. Learning that just might help people think and express themselves more clearly, not less.

True, it's going the other way. But it's still the same kind of manipulation. I'm very much against racism, but this doesn't actually help. It's looking at the world through a lens of race/colour so that everything must be an expression of racial relations. If people start adopting this view it will actually move away from the post racism colour-blind society we should strive for and instead amplifies the divide between groups. So when this kind of thinking is accepted, if anyone talks about white or black we have to think if any black people could be offended.

Removing Master/Slave I can kind of tolerate as slavery is an awful thing, although I think maybe we should be more offended that many electronics are partly made by actual slaves. But removing black/white is just ludicrous. It originates from darkness is dangerous light is safe. Just like red is hot, blue is cold. Banning black and white from our vocabulary or even getting triggered when it is used outside of the context of race will only amplify the idea that black and white people are two different groups who should be considered separately.

First point: For non-white people, interactions with the dominant culture in the US are often-to-always colored by race anyway. It's usually only white people who want "color blindness." Black folks and non-black people of color mostly just want to be treated fairly, not have others pretend that they aren't Black or Indian or Puerto Rican or whatever. The idea is to EMBRACE differences, not erase them.

Second point: No one is calling for the banning of the words "white" and "black." As has been stated many times on this thread and yet seems to be willingly misunderstood by many, the request to rethink the connotations that "white" means good, clean, angelic, etc. and "black" means bad, dirty, demonic, etc. We probably can't remove these connotations 100% but we can be more thoughtful about how we use these words and, in doing so, remove a lot of the harm they cause.

If we don't want people to associate dark/black with bad and light/white with good . . . Can we start by cleaning up the bible?


1 John 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Acts 26:18
To open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

John 8:12
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Luke 1:79
To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

John 3:19-21
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Ephesians 5:8
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

1 John 2:8-11
At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

etc.

[MudPuppy]

I’m not sure you are making the point you want to make, @GuitarStv. Huge swathes of the Bible are problematic af and I say that as a Catholic.

[RWD]

There's also "Grey Hat" which is hacking with good intentions but without permission.

[BECABECA]

Do we also have to stop using male and female to describe electrical connectors?  Some of those connectors might identify with a different gender.

I know most plumbers and electricians may be neutral about the terms, but when I was a kid and first learned the terms my reaction was "ick, why are they using grownup sex terms for hoses?"

Not to derail the thread, but I personally think it’s high time we stop using male and female (and subsequent heterosexual copulation connection) to describe connectors. In my engineering career, I was typically the only female in most groups I worked in, and also the only out gay person. So to have these connectors mentioned made me very aware of my otherness.

If you’re a heterosexual male, an equivalent jarring sexual juxtaposition in the workplace would be if the connectors were called a Man’s asshole and a Prostate Tickler. Feel how unnecessarily vulgar that sounds? Yeah, that’s exactly how it sounds to me.

But I never mentioned my discomfort with these terms at work, because I already had enough sexism and homophobia to deal with, I wasn’t going to open myself up to even more. And I would bet money that most black software engineers are bothered by these racist software terms but wouldn’t say so at work because they already deal with enough racism without having extra blowback from this.

So guys, please throw your support behind calling connectors nonsexualized naming conventions, just as us white people can support switching to color neutral descriptors.

[GuitarStv]

I’m not sure you are making the point you want to make, @GuitarStv. Huge swathes of the Bible are problematic af and I say that as a Catholic.

You see those passages as problematic for racial reasons?

[MudPuppy]

No, I do not, but 1) no one is talking about changing old texts, just adapting modern usages and 2) the bible isn't the right text to point to as a nonproblematic standard

[GuitarStv]

No, I do not, but 1) no one is talking about changing old texts, just adapting modern usages and 2) the bible isn't the right text to point to as a nonproblematic standard

If the problem is that we're afraid that black people feel uncomfortable with the concept of dark/black being evil when used in non-racial context . . . shouldn't we be trying to change things in (arguably) the most important and influential text in the US?  At the very least, I would expect churches to issue commands that all references to Jesus being the light should no longer be spoken in modern service.

The root of much (if not all) of the black = bad European idea comes from the Bible.  Seems like a more natural place to start than cowboy hats.

[boy_bye]

No, I do not, but 1) no one is talking about changing old texts, just adapting modern usages and 2) the bible isn't the right text to point to as a nonproblematic standard

If the problem is that we're afraid that black people feel uncomfortable with the concept of dark/black being evil when used in non-racial context . . . shouldn't we be trying to change things in (arguably) the most important and influential text in the US?  At the very least, I would expect churches to issue commands that all references to Jesus being the light should no longer be spoken in modern service.

The root of much (if not all) of the black = bad European idea comes from the Bible.  Seems like a more natural place to start than cowboy hats.

At this point you're no longer discussing this in good faith, GuitarStv. This is clearly an asinine idea and far afield of the topic of the thread.

No one is talking about scrubbing all the problematic stuff out of history. Again, the request is to use language in the here and now, in a more inclusive and sensitive way.

[bacchi]

Removing Master/Slave I can kind of tolerate as slavery is an awful thing, although I think maybe we should be more offended that many electronics are partly made by actual slaves.

Tilting at windmills....

Dave Eggers' "The Circle" has a sub-plot about this. Everyone is concerned about signing online petitions instead of actually doing something real, like not buying airpods.

[maizefolk]

But I do think that we will all benefit from dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds.

This is clearly an asinine idea and far afield of the topic of the thread.

No one is talking about scrubbing all the problematic stuff out of history. Again, the request is to use language in the here and now, in a more inclusive and sensitive way.

These two posts would seem to be inconsistent with each other.

If the stated end goal is to dissociate black/dark from danger/bad and light/white* from good/safe, looking at how these concepts are portrayed in a text that a large proportion of the population reads and refers to when they are trying to decide on what they consider good and bad seems pretty on topic.

If the goal is only to change the way we're using language now, then the goal isn't "dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds."

*Arguably one could also try to achieve the same end by dissociated "light" from "white" and "dark" from "black" but that seems like an even greater cognitive hurdle.

[scottish]

Just wondering, is the code open source?

If not, who initiated the request for change?

[dividendman]

If the stated end goal is to dissociate black/dark from danger/bad and light/white* from good/safe, looking at how these concepts are portrayed in a text that a large proportion of the population reads and refers to when they are trying to decide on what they consider good and bad seems pretty on topic.

I don't think that will ever happen because we are not nocturnal creatures. It is clear that walking around in the dark is more dangerous than walking around in the light, all other things being equal. We are built, and rightfully so, to fear/be cautious of the dark.

Now, applying that to people is wrong, but making dark=good and light=bad makes no sense at all.

I generally agree with GuitarStv, we seem to be attacking the wrong problems, or at least prioritizing them wrong.

Sticking with the Bible theme, I was (and still am) always curious as to why people aren't pulling down statues/paintings of white Jesus in every church around the country. It's clear that this is the biggest "whitewashing" in history, Jesus was a brown guy. The son of God is brown. Yet somehow we let that slide and are worried about analogies in computer code...

Maybe if all of the Christians in the country were worshiping a brown guy it might change attitudes more than a whitelist of IP addresses being called the allowlist.

[LWYRUP]

Jesus was a Jewish man from the eastern Mediterranean 2,000 years ago, so the logical conclusion is that he looked like the way the typical Jewish man from the eastern Mediterranean 2,000 years ago looked like. 

The closest example would be Sephardic Jews without a history of intermarriage, although similar sects such as Druze, Alawaites, Maronites, etc. would also be helpful.  Whether that is "brown" or not is in the eye of the beholder.  He certainly was neither European (as was commonly shown in European paintings) nor Arab (which is what I think some people think of when they say things like "Jesus was brown.")

Anyways, most Christians historically have simply drawn Mary and Jesus to look like people from their culture.  So, Italians made pictures of Mary and Jesus that looked Italian, Spaniards made pictures that looked Spanish, Ethiopians made pictures that looked Ethiopian, Japanese made pictures that looked Japanese, etc.  (I think I saw one in a museum by a Danish artist that gave Mary red hair actually.)  This is not recent, the Virgin of Gaudeloupe (the "brown lady," brown being mestiza here, not Arab (or Shephardi Jew) and not European Spanish either) was done in 1531.  There are Japanese Virgin Mary's from hundreds of years ago, and of course the Ethiopian church is one of the oldest there is.   There's nothing nefarious about this, except insofar as the European version crowded out other local versions in certain places (though understandably there can also be confusion or tension where a society has become more diverse and thus the pictures look dated). 

This is a great example where the current trend toward iconoclasm ("let's hate on or even destroy cultural artifacts to show how woke we are") is totally wrong.  We should simply encourage people to draw Jesus and Mary however the heck they want.
 Middle-eastern, hispanic, white, native american, sub-saharan african, asian, indian, aborigonal.  Whatever.  And of course some depictions that intend to be as historically accurate as possible would be nice too, but that's not necessary for religious iconograpgy. 

By the way, since this thread is about trying to modify language to be less offensive, many people would be offended by someone who is not religious (no idea what your background is, just going on numbers based on this website) and who doesn't seem to know much about the history of religious iconography telling people they need to pull down their religious statues.  I'm not that easily offended, so whatever, but I know many people who would be.  Remember, respect is a two way street. 

[MonkeyJenga]

What if instead of trying to call brown people who identify 'black' because of their brownness, we change 'white' people to 'pink' people instead?  This would be more socially acceptable, no?  And then we can leave all the many white/black comparisons because they wouldn't be racially comparable.  Nobody's worried about 'pink hat'/'black hat' comparisons, right?

Whether I am pink or red depends on how much time I've been in the sun. Also some people are actually black, for example:


But seriously, you're still doing the thing where you're proposing solutions that are beyond the circle of control of the people in question. OP's company can't convince society to switch to pink/brown. They can decide to stop using the terms "white/black hat". You can have high-minded discussions about what the optimal societal solution is beyond that, but to frame it as "this company's word-change list is wrong because" makes no sense.

First of all . . . that picture is crazy!


Not sure your argument here is valid.  Surely a workplace that can tell it's people not to use black hat/white hat can also tell it's people to use 'pink' instead of 'white'.  It's not like the workplace has control over use of black hat/white hat terms in society, just as it doesn't have control over use of pink/white.  That shouldn't stop them from doing what they think is right.

How often do software developers talk about white people as part of their jobs?

[dividendman]

Jesus was a Jewish man from the eastern Mediterranean 2,000 years ago, so the logical conclusion is that he looked like the way the typical Jewish man from the eastern Mediterranean 2,000 years ago looked like. 

The closest example would be Sephardic Jews without a history of intermarriage, although similar sects such as Druze, Alawaites, Maronites, etc. would also be helpful.  Whether that is "brown" or not is in the eye of the beholder.  He certainly was neither European (as was commonly shown in European paintings) nor Arab (which is what I think some people think of when they say things like "Jesus was brown.")

Anyways, most Christians historically have simply drawn Mary and Jesus to look like people from their culture.  So, Italians made pictures of Mary and Jesus that looked Italian, Spaniards made pictures that looked Spanish, Ethiopians made pictures that looked Ethiopian, Japanese made pictures that looked Japanese, etc.  (I think I saw one in a museum by a Danish artist that gave Mary red hair actually.)  This is not recent, the Virgin of Gaudeloupe (the "brown lady," brown being mestiza here, not Arab (or Shephardi Jew) and not European Spanish either) was done in 1531.  There are Japanese Virgin Mary's from hundreds of years ago, and of course the Ethiopian church is one of the oldest there is.   There's nothing nefarious about this, except insofar as the European version crowded out other local versions in certain places (though understandably there can also be confusion or tension where a society has become more diverse and thus the pictures look dated). 

This is a great example where the current trend toward iconoclasm ("let's hate on or even destroy cultural artifacts to show how woke we are") is totally wrong.  We should simply encourage people to draw Jesus and Mary however the heck they want.
 Middle-eastern, hispanic, white, native american, sub-saharan african, asian, indian, aborigonal.  Whatever.  And of course some depictions that intend to be as historically accurate as possible would be nice too, but that's not necessary for religious iconograpgy. 

By the way, since this thread is about trying to modify language to be less offensive, many people would be offended by someone who is not religious (no idea what your background is, just going on numbers based on this website) and who doesn't seem to know much about the history of religious iconography telling people they need to pull down their religious statues.  I'm not that easily offended, so whatever, but I know many people who would be.  Remember, respect is a two way street.

Oh yeah, you're right. I've been in many churches where the congregants were of many cultures and they routinely changed the picture of Jesus to not look like a white European to reflect the population of the congregants... oh wait, no, I've never seen that. I've seen majority black churches with white Jesus, multicultural churches with white Jesus, Korean churches with white Jesus... I've yet to see a church with majority being white/european descent have picture of Japanese or black Jesus though. Strange.

I'm sure if I google "actors who have portrayed jesus" I'm sure I'll find a nice multicultural mix.... oh wait, nope. Weird.

[LWYRUP]

I'm looking at this from the someone that is Catholic and looking at the Catholic & Orthodox churches both globally and historically.  I suppose I should have given a caveat that I have no idea what Protestants do or why, not a knock you will need to ask them.  But there is indeed numerous precedent for depictions of the holy family from many different backgrounds (I gave you an example of one very famous, very historical one that is commonly venerated in the USA today, but there are more) and so given that history, my idea of "let's create even more beautiful inclusive religious art that is reflective of our increasingly diverse communities" and your idea of "I don't know why everyone isn't tearing down all the statutes" I'm going to go with my idea as better in the long run for many reasons. 

Usually the people whose impulse is "let's keep all of our current art and culture and just expand it and have even more art and culture" tend to be better regarded by history than those whose impulse is "tear it down, burn it down."

[dividendman]

I'm looking at this from the someone that is Catholic and looking at the Catholic & Orthodox churches both globally and historically.  I suppose I should have given a caveat that I have no idea what Protestants do or why, not a knock you will need to ask them.  But there is indeed numerous precedent for depictions of the holy family from many different backgrounds (I gave you an example of one very famous, very historical one that is commonly venerated in the USA today, but there are more) and so given that history, my idea of "let's create even more beautiful inclusive religious art that is reflective of our increasingly diverse communities" and your idea of "I don't know why everyone isn't tearing down all the statutes" I'm going to go with my idea as better in the long run for many reasons. 

Usually the people whose impulse is "let's keep all of our current art and culture and just expand it and have even more art and culture" tend to be better regarded by history than those whose impulse is "tear it down, burn it down."

I agree. In my original post I was just pointing out the contradiction.

I think we can memorialize someone without that being an endorsement of everything that person did, otherwise we wouldn't have any statues.

[LWYRUP]

I'm looking at this from the someone that is Catholic and looking at the Catholic & Orthodox churches both globally and historically.  I suppose I should have given a caveat that I have no idea what Protestants do or why, not a knock you will need to ask them.  But there is indeed numerous precedent for depictions of the holy family from many different backgrounds (I gave you an example of one very famous, very historical one that is commonly venerated in the USA today, but there are more) and so given that history, my idea of "let's create even more beautiful inclusive religious art that is reflective of our increasingly diverse communities" and your idea of "I don't know why everyone isn't tearing down all the statutes" I'm going to go with my idea as better in the long run for many reasons. 

Usually the people whose impulse is "let's keep all of our current art and culture and just expand it and have even more art and culture" tend to be better regarded by history than those whose impulse is "tear it down, burn it down."

I agree. In my original post I was just pointing out the contradiction.

I think we can memorialize someone without that being an endorsement of everything that person did, otherwise we wouldn't have any statues.

Well, I think in America for most of its history there has been the assumption that default = white.  Obviously we all know the long and ugly history of our treatment of black and native americans.  But that has also resulted in anomolies such as white religious iconography in Korean churches, etc.  I think that needs to change. 

Wikipedia tells me there are large number of Korean catholic saints.  So at least if there are any catholics concerned about that, this would be a very easy place to start.  Generally I think US catholic churches look too protestant anyways, so I would personally never say no to a few extra statutes and paintings going up.   

We can do this without demonizing masterpieces like Carvaggio's Doubting Thomas or El Greco's Ascension as being insufficiently woke, as if anyone currently alive on earth is capable of producing something better.  (They aren't, because we simply don't have the infrastructure of the renaissance apprenticship structure necessary to instill that level of mastery.)

[SwordGuy]

At first glance these seem like weird/nonsensical things to get upset about, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

I couldn't explain to you what is offensive about all of these terms, but what seems nonsensical to me is making a stink about a simple change in terminology. If anything, the new alternatives are clearer. How is switching going to hurt anyone? This isn't the first boring task that's ever been assigned and it won't be the last.

I wasn't really trying to 'make a stink'.  Just a bit confused.  How does getting rid of a term that refers to cowboy westerns help race relations?  Black hat/white hat seems like a weird thing to target . . . and like it was chosen by someone ignorant of the etymology of the term.

Ok, @GuitarStv , I'll bite.

Why do the good guys wear "white hats" and the bad guys were "black hats"?   Why not the other way around?    Please explain the etymology.

[AccidentialMustache]

The googs was giving me suggestions that the white hat is meant to signify good/pure from the cultural white wedding dress and of course black hat is just the opposite.

That wouldn't have been my first guess. My first guess would have been an updated white knight/black knight metaphor in western's clothes.

I have ... concerns about modifying white hat/black hat as allowed language since that's something of a cultural identity for what was at times a marginalized group. Sure, it was probably a mostly white, privileged marginalized group, but much like I should not be telling a black person that they'll be known as African-American, I'm feeling sketchy about telling the hacker sub-culture it can't identify itself with its chosen/adopted terms.

If those terms were meant to hurt, then that'd be a different matter. I'm not finding evidence of such here though.

It also is very clear to me that "white hat" = good and "black hat" = bad presented as a "truth" which justifies scrubbing the terms means you aren't part of that culture. It is a lot more complex than that simplification and is going to "depend greatly on your point of view."

The law&order types aren't going to like either hat. The black hats are criminals, but the white hats defend the bad guys because they love encryption and make encryption tools the bad guys use and keep fighting the law&order types when we want to break encryption/spy on everyone.

Is a "black hat" who hacks the KKK a bad guy? What about Manning or Snowden? Snowden's actions were clearly black hat territory (even if he did it from the inside). Law&order says he's bad. I would argue the other way.

[PDXTabs]

I have ... concerns about modifying white hat/black hat as allowed language since that's something of a cultural identity for what was at times a marginalized group. Sure, it was probably a mostly white, privileged marginalized group, but much like I should not be telling a black person that they'll be known as African-American, I'm feeling sketchy about telling the hacker sub-culture it can't identify itself with its chosen/adopted terms.

I doubt that nowadays they are mostly white. Maybe in the US and Europe, but there are plenty of black hats in Africa, Asia, and the middle easy. Even in the UK there are people like Marcus Hutchins* who is half Jamaican.

I would follow up with what @AccidentialMustache said to add that I think a lot of black hats would be sad to not be able to call themselves black hats anymore.

* - edited to add - but he might be a grey hat.

[2Cent]

I hate this so much. Not because I'm so attached to specific terms, but because it feels so manipulative. Like 1984 new speak where the language is purged so that people will not be able to express or even think certain concepts.

And yet, what it is doing at this point is the opposite. Making people realize that words have consequences and should be thought about.

Just like folks have said here, most people don't think about "gypped" as being problematic, but it is. Learning that just might help people think and express themselves more clearly, not less.

True, it's going the other way. But it's still the same kind of manipulation. I'm very much against racism, but this doesn't actually help. It's looking at the world through a lens of race/colour so that everything must be an expression of racial relations. If people start adopting this view it will actually move away from the post racism colour-blind society we should strive for and instead amplifies the divide between groups. So when this kind of thinking is accepted, if anyone talks about white or black we have to think if any black people could be offended.

Removing Master/Slave I can kind of tolerate as slavery is an awful thing, although I think maybe we should be more offended that many electronics are partly made by actual slaves. But removing black/white is just ludicrous. It originates from darkness is dangerous light is safe. Just like red is hot, blue is cold. Banning black and white from our vocabulary or even getting triggered when it is used outside of the context of race will only amplify the idea that black and white people are two different groups who should be considered separately.

First point: For non-white people, interactions with the dominant culture in the US are often-to-always colored by race anyway. It's usually only white people who want "color blindness." Black folks and non-black people of color mostly just want to be treated fairly, not have others pretend that they aren't Black or Indian or Puerto Rican or whatever. The idea is to EMBRACE differences, not erase them.

Second point: No one is calling for the banning of the words "white" and "black." As has been stated many times on this thread and yet seems to be willingly misunderstood by many, the request is to rethink the connotations that "white" means good, clean, angelic, etc. and "black" means bad, dirty, demonic, etc. We probably can't remove these connotations 100% but we can be more thoughtful about how we use these words and, in doing so, remove a lot of the harm they cause.

Going by what people want is a trap. Sure, people who are suffering from police brutality just want to be left alone. But once that is realised they will want the next thing. Its like Maslov's pyramid.
And what is fair? In people's minds the cost of things is always tilted to exaggerate their pains and efforts and minimises that of others. A truly fair system will be seen as unfair by all. The only way to stop the tension between people is to mix them up and avoid making rules based on colour/race. So not letting black be used to represent evil might seem like helping black people, but it just creates a separation as it makes everyone think about black people as a separate group of people. In my mind it should be no more different than hair colour.

...

Oh yeah, you're right. I've been in many churches where the congregants were of many cultures and they routinely changed the picture of Jesus to not look like a white European to reflect the population of the congregants... oh wait, no, I've never seen that. I've seen majority black churches with white Jesus, multicultural churches with white Jesus, Korean churches with white Jesus... I've yet to see a church with majority being white/european descent have picture of Japanese or black Jesus though. Strange.

I'm sure if I google "actors who have portrayed jesus" I'm sure I'll find a nice multicultural mix.... oh wait, nope. Weird.

Because most movies are from Europe and the US. In my church we regularly have pictures up from different cultures that portray Jesus as coloured. And in dramas he is often played by Africans or Indians.

[js82]

Put another way, if someone tells me what I'm doing is hurting them, it's less important for me to get them to sell me on the fact that their perspective is valid than it is for me to just stop hurting them.

This makes perfect sense to me.  I'm just unclear if people are really being hurt by the terms 'black hat' and 'white hat', or if this is an overreaction made by Sue or Bob in HR due to the current political climate.

I don't know if anyone is specifically hurt by 'black hat' and 'white hat' and it's possible that HR is doing more than what's necessary. But I do think that we will all benefit from dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds.

Agree with this.

Besides that, moving towards more literal definitions (i.e. "permit/allow list" and "block/deny list") is probably a good thing for communication over the long run.  When conversing across different languages using terms that don't require an understanding of figurative expressions from another language is likely to result in smoother communication.  We're not talking about employing euphemisms here, we're talking about removing figurative language with problematic cultural connotations, in favor of more literal definitions - calling things what they are.

[Dibbels81]

Also, the Heimlich maneuver has become politically correct. I was renewing my CPR certification with the AHA: now before we rush to the aid of a choking man, we are to ask him if he's pregnant or not.

[GuitarStv]

At first glance these seem like weird/nonsensical things to get upset about, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

I couldn't explain to you what is offensive about all of these terms, but what seems nonsensical to me is making a stink about a simple change in terminology. If anything, the new alternatives are clearer. How is switching going to hurt anyone? This isn't the first boring task that's ever been assigned and it won't be the last.

I wasn't really trying to 'make a stink'.  Just a bit confused.  How does getting rid of a term that refers to cowboy westerns help race relations?  Black hat/white hat seems like a weird thing to target . . . and like it was chosen by someone ignorant of the etymology of the term.

Ok, @GuitarStv , I'll bite.

Why do the good guys wear "white hats" and the bad guys were "black hats"?   Why not the other way around?    Please explain the etymology.

Black hat/white hat comes from old black and white cowboy movies.  Hollywood used the hat designation to quickly show the audience which grizzled white cowboy to root for and which was the bad guy.  White was chosen as white/light has (for thousands of years in European culture) been the symbol of good and black/dark bad (see the bible verses quoted above).  This well pre-dates the modern usage of 'black' to refer to a person with brown skin (I think it was maizeman who mentioned that in Shakespeare's time brown people would have been referred to as 'moores' or 'moorish').

[MudPuppy]

Also, the Heimlich maneuver has become politically correct. I was renewing my CPR certification with the AHA: now before we rush to the aid of a choking man, we are to ask him if he's pregnant or not.

Old man yells at cloud?

[techwiz]

Also, the Heimlich maneuver has become politically correct. I was renewing my CPR certification with the AHA: now before we rush to the aid of a choking man, we are to ask him if he's pregnant or not.

Old man yells at cloud?

It's been a while since I last recertified....  I was taught to confirm if they are choking and if they are able to verbally respond or make sound you don't do the Heimlich maneuver until they are unable to talk.  Not sure of the confidence I would be projecting asking a man if he is pregnant.  The Heimlich for an overweight or pregnant person can still be done on the center of the person's breastbone. Being politically correct during a life and death crisis would not be top on my list. Although maybe the trainer was just making sure you always ask the question and turning it into a habit.   

[Laura33]

Going by what people want is a trap. Sure, people who are suffering from police brutality just want to be left alone. But once that is realised they will want the next thing. Its like Maslov's pyramid.

Umm, wow.  Those damn uppity minorities, sure, now they think they want not to be shot by the cops.  But give 'em that, and next thing you know, they'll want to not be pulled over for DWB.  And if they get that, they'll be asking to be hired and promoted just like white people.  My God, where will it end?

So this is my last post on this particular thread, because I am just flat-out tired of the hubris.  The thing is, you and I don't get to decide for other people what they have the "right" to be offended by.  They have their own lived experiences, full of a thousand interactions every day that we don't even notice* -- because we've not had to.  We don't get to decide how much equality and fairness to divvy out to others, how much they "should" be satisfied with, what kinds of language they think is reasonable.  They are independent humans with the exact same inalienable rights as us, and they get to choose when and how to demand them and to form their own opinions of whether a certain word or characterization is offensive.  And the fact that we seem to consistently act as though we think that we have the right to decide for them -- that we get to be the arbiter of what complaints are reasonable and what are not, based on our own experience and our own rationalized view of how the world should be -- is in fact the ultimate exercise of hubris.**  Guess what?  No one asked us!*** 

So, yeah, you're free to grumble about language changes all you want.  You're free to roll your eyes and argue about slippery slopes and how no reasonable person could possibly be offended in your perfect objective world (and thus anyone who is offended is by definition unreasonable -- nice rhetorical device there).  You're free to continue to use whatever language you want and ignore how that affects some of your fellow humans, or to decide that if it does affect them, that they're just oversensitive, and you're completely reasonable and right, and to continue on doing exactly what you're doing.  And you're free to write it all off as "political correct" (another super-nifty rhetorical device that dismisses the entire argument by implying that the whole underlying issue is completely unjustified and people are going along just because they know they're expected to).  All of that is your inalienable right.  But you don't have the right to control how other people feel about/are affected by/respond to those choices.   


*Example from this week:  sitting in bathroom stall, there's a bathroom attendant and a tip jar, I hear another woman leaving tell her companion to "leave a tip for the girl."  That "girl" was a black woman in her 60s.   

**Yes, I know "privilege" is the word du jour.  But I think hubris is more accurate.  We think we know how someone should feel better than they do, despite having absolutely no insight into their life experience.  It's like racial mansplaining. 

***Which is, of course, the ultimate source of the anger.  See "hubris," supra.

[boy_bye]

But I do think that we will all benefit from dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds.

This is clearly an asinine idea and far afield of the topic of the thread.

No one is talking about scrubbing all the problematic stuff out of history. Again, the request is to use language in the here and now, in a more inclusive and sensitive way.

These two posts would seem to be inconsistent with each other.

If the stated end goal is to dissociate black/dark from danger/bad and light/white* from good/safe, looking at how these concepts are portrayed in a text that a large proportion of the population reads and refers to when they are trying to decide on what they consider good and bad seems pretty on topic.

If the goal is only to change the way we're using language now, then the goal isn't "dissociating black from bad and white from good in our own minds."

Now it's you not discussing this in good faith. How obtuse do you have to be to not see the connection between changing language and changing thoughts, over time? Do you think that the change in white people's usage of the n word over the last several decades has had no impact on how white people think about Black people? Do you think that the words we use for things has no impact on how we think about them, and vice versa?

Laura33's post is right. Y'all are stuck in your heads, stuck in the way you are used to seeing the world, resisting all the change happening all around you right now, thinking you are the arbiters of objective truth, thinking that your OPINION is objective and rational and right, and the rest of us are hysterical idiots who don't know how to think.

No. We know how to think. The issue is that you all don't know how to feel. Men's inability to identify, feel, and process emotions is literally destroying this world and yet you can't let go of your precious privilege of seeing yourselves as the arbiters of reason.

And you make another large mistake, which is that thinking anyone in the rising movement gives a shit about what you think and how smart you think you are compared to us. We don't. We just intend to take your power away and do better things with it.

[LWYRUP]

This is a very interesting comment in a thread about reforming language to treat people with respect.  I'm not going to dissect it, I think it's fine to let it stand for itself. 

[CupcakeGuru]

*Example from this week:  sitting in bathroom stall, there's a bathroom attendant and a tip jar, I hear another woman leaving tell her companion to "leave a tip for the girl."  That "girl" was a black woman in her 60s.   


I am the only high ranking women in my business unit in a very male dominated industry. A couple of men in my unit still say stupid things like "Are the girls back from lunch?" The youngest women on my team is 51 years old.

[GuitarStv]

*Example from this week:  sitting in bathroom stall, there's a bathroom attendant and a tip jar, I hear another woman leaving tell her companion to "leave a tip for the girl."  That "girl" was a black woman in her 60s.   


I am the only high ranking women in my business unit in a very male dominated industry. A couple of men in my unit still say stupid things like "Are the girls back from lunch?" The youngest women on my team is 51 years old.

I think that some of this stems from a lack of a good alternate casual descriptor for women.  "Girls" and "guys" are words typically used in the same way - to informally refer to a group of women or men.  So it's probably not a (or at least not always a) disrespect thing, or an attempt to treat women like children.  Saying 'women' is more like saying 'men' and feels kinda awkward for casual use.  You wouldn't say "I'm going to meet up with the men at the bar", right?  Most people would use guys/girls in that context.

I agree that it feels a bit more problematic when referring to a single person who is elderly.  (I'd happily say "leave a tip for the guy", but probably wouldn't use "leave a tip for that girl").

[partgypsy]

I'm not a linguist but I posit that the western world has been using dark as a shortcut for bad/danger since time immemorial. When most people tended to their crops their entire lives within a 30 mile radius of where they were born, not even knowing that there were black people in this world.

Night and darkness is scary, and universally so, which is why we film horror movies tend to be filmed in dark settings.

 I heard a black man (I think he was a comedian) speak of  devil's food cake that is dark brown  as an example of the association of darkness with things that are bad/scary/dangerous.

I thought his observation was on point especially since angel food cake is white.

but devils food is so much more delicious! Same with deviled eggs.

[RWD]

Uh...can't you just do a global find and replace?  Doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Yeah, no problem. Definitely will be no unintended side effects. Should just work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6NJkWbM1xk

[ChickenStash]

*Example from this week:  sitting in bathroom stall, there's a bathroom attendant and a tip jar, I hear another woman leaving tell her companion to "leave a tip for the girl."  That "girl" was a black woman in her 60s.   


I am the only high ranking women in my business unit in a very male dominated industry. A couple of men in my unit still say stupid things like "Are the girls back from lunch?" The youngest women on my team is 51 years old.

I think that some of this stems from a lack of a good alternate casual descriptor for women.  "Girls" and "guys" are words typically used in the same way - to informally refer to a group of women or men.  So it's probably not a (or at least not always a) disrespect thing, or an attempt to treat women like children.  Saying 'women' is more like saying 'men' and feels kinda awkward for casual use.  You wouldn't say "I'm going to meet up with the men at the bar", right?  Most people would use guys/girls in that context.

I agree that it feels a bit more problematic when referring to a single person who is elderly.  (I'd happily say "leave a tip for the guy", but probably wouldn't use "leave a tip for that girl").

Maybe it regional but I'm more familiar with the pairings being boys/girls and guys/gals (or ladies). At the ripe old age of 40, I'm often referred to as "one of the boys" and never found it offensive or demeaning. 

There's more gender-fluid individuals entering my world lately so I've generally stopped using those male/female specific terms so as not to offend anyone (or get fired, mostly). The informal "peeps" is a personal favorite.

[nereo]

Also, the Heimlich maneuver has become politically correct. I was renewing my CPR certification with the AHA: now before we rush to the aid of a choking man, we are to ask him if he's pregnant or not.

It has nothing to do with political correctness.  Dr. Heimlich had an ongoing battle with the American Red Cross about the use of back blows (which he thought were bad) and his use of abdominal thrusts (aka "The Heimlich Maneuver").  He even went so far as to fund his own study and campaign "Hug, don't hit!" in one of the more bizarre public safety battles.

The Red Cross dropped the term "Heimlich Maneuver" partially because of this ongoing battle (and because they *still* teach back blows in addition), but more importantly they did so because "abdominal thrusts" is self explanatory.  Even if you've never undergone training one can basicsally figure out what to do for "abdominal thrusts". 

Given the stress involved in life and death situations the focus is on making instructions as simple and effective as possible. 

[mckaylabaloney]

This is a very interesting comment in a thread about reforming language to treat people with respect.  I'm not going to dissect it, I think it's fine to let it stand for itself.

This response.........really does not do whatever you think it's doing. You are demonstrating exactly what Laura and madgey are critiquing.

Among other things, it's incredibly disingenuous to say that this is a thread about "reforming language to treat people with respect." No. It is a thread about reforming language to address longstanding systemic discrimination and privilege (or lack thereof). That is about so much more than respect. Collapsing it into "respect," and then implying that sharply critiquing people with privilege is in any way comparable to using language that marginalizes minority groups, is...incredible.

I am a person with a huge amount of privilege. I hope that if someone observes me wielding that privilege in harmful ways, or speaking in ways that are, at best, ignorant of my privilege -- as we've seen all over this thread -- I wouldn't demand that the person treats me gently in drawing my attention to my mistakes, or that I use their own sharp language as an excuse to look away from the truth of their criticism.

Telling me the truth about how I am using my privilege in the world is more "respectful" than saying things politely, or whatever it is you think madgey should have done.

[BECABECA]

This is a very interesting comment in a thread about reforming language to treat people with respect.  I'm not going to dissect it, I think it's fine to let it stand for itself.

This response.........really does not do whatever you think it's doing. You are demonstrating exactly what Laura and madgey are critiquing.

Among other things, it's incredibly disingenuous to say that this is a thread about "reforming language to treat people with respect." No. It is a thread about reforming language to address longstanding systemic discrimination and privilege (or lack thereof). That is about so much more than respect. Collapsing it into "respect," and then implying that sharply critiquing people with privilege is in any way comparable to using language that marginalizes minority groups, is...incredible.

I am a person with a huge amount of privilege. I hope that if someone observes me wielding that privilege in harmful ways, or speaking in ways that are, at best, ignorant of my privilege -- as we've seen all over this thread -- I wouldn't demand that the person treats me gently in drawing my attention to my mistakes, or that I use their own sharp language as an excuse to look away from the truth of their criticism.

Telling me the truth about how I am using my privilege in the world is more "respectful" than saying things politely, or whatever it is you think madgey should have done.

+1 Well said!