You are free to disagree about the claims by many individuals that the
uses of the terms master/slave are offensive.
The claims are not absurd, and attempting as you do to dismiss them as
absurd is inappropriate at best, and possibly worse.
In my view, we all have claims to relevance for the discussion. Please
do not claim that being Jewish gives us special rights to dismiss other
people's concern. It doesn't.
With regard to the particular documents (which may or may not have been
removed, I haven't checked), reading the Les White drafts, I had assumed
(we all do make assumptions) that they were a troll's attempt to stir up
trouble. Knowing now that they are from Dan, I believe that he intended
them as a means to point out his concerns. I don't know if they should
or should notbe( have been?) removed. (I do not think they helped any
aspect of the discussion or development of the community. But that in
and of itself is not a reason to remove them.) I do know that doing so
is not egregious and falls well within the judgment calls we expect our
leadership to make.
One of the things I find important to keep in mind is that the
denotations and connotations of words evolve. It is not easy to tell
when they have changed and how. However, if they have changed to become
offensive to a significant group of people, we should pay attention to
that fact. The fact that as far as anyone involved could tell they were
not offensive at some time in the past does not give the terms immunity.
Nor does it make this process simple. Heck, as evinced from some of
the earlier conversations even figuring out what sources are appropriate
to use to make judgments about the problem is hard. That does not free
us from an obligation to try.
Yours,
Joel
On 4/5/2021 11:57 AM, Viktor Dukhovni wrote:
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.
