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This may seem kind of stupid but I am kind of stupid, is there a list somewhere of phrases that are stupid or insensitive racially or gender biased? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said "well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip." And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.

Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me until it's already said.

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[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Oof. At work we currently have a project for words deemed insensitive. For the most part I think it's worthy, but some things are overboard. The project group cast a very wide net, ignoring context and etymology. My biggest disagreement is over "black" and "white".

Take "black box" and "white box" for types of testing. These are based merely on the properties of light. I have serious doubts about anyone ever having felt excluded by their use. And yet, we're wasting time coming up with non-standard nomenclature to satisfy this supposed slight. There's a whole laundry list of words like this.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

You should call them "box that absorbs all light" and "box that absorbs no light" you fucking racist

[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm still mad about git master

Master as in "the master copy"

And they went and broke a bunch of tools and workflows to change it

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah, master has a few uses like this. Master bedrooms came about in the 20th century and had nothing to do with slavery. Then there is master in a pupil setting, though that is fairly uncommon in the US anyway. It's more of a European/UK thing I think.

Again, I have nothing against changing things that are genuinely problematic. I just have a problem with busy work that is being demanded for items that aren't actually offensive.