> On Apr 5, 2021, at 9:14 AM, Nick Hilliard <nick@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > The material difference between it and the recent Apr 1 IDs was that that the Apr 1 IDs > took aim at a set of measures intended to deal with an injustice. Intended, yes. Fit for purpose? Very much not. My heritage is of a people persecuted for a couple of millennia and not too long ago the victims of a genocide. Each year during passover we read lines that are I think of some relevance to this thread: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/306911 We were slaves to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt ... https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/847033/jewish/Avadim-Hayinu.htm We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt – now we are free Unsurprisingly, the story of Passover is hard to miss in the language of the African American freedom movement. Let my people go. To attain and retain freedom, we must not forget slavery, this is a word to be understood, not suppressed, an institution to be fought where it still exists, not ignored. The notion that "master/slave" is offensive technical language is absurd on its face. What is offensive are moves towards language policing, which is both unnecessary and exclusionary. The other straw man motivating TERM is "whitelist/blacklist", but who were the main targets of "blacklisting" in American history? Disproportionately Jewish leftists, not African Americans (against whom one could unfortunately all too easily discriminate, if one were so inlined, without needing a list...). If use of whitelist/blacklist occasionally helps to keep the memory of past discrimination alive, all the better. These words connect us to an unvarnished past so we can do better in the future. They do not target or oppress anyone, they are a heritage. The IETF is wasting precious energy contemplating needless expurgation of its vocabulary that serves only to empower a strident few who would have us daily atone for sins we did not commit. This effort is plainly divisive and exclusionary for many IETF participants (perhaps a minority, though hard to say whether supporters truly outnumber those uncomfortable with where this is heading). The best way to be inclusive is to respect people enough to not imagine them to be unduly fragile. Encourage participation, listen, mentor. Don't infantilize. -- Viktor.
