This year presented humanity with challenges beyond our wildest imagination from a pandemic to a revived civil rights movement. The current protests are bringing a spotlight to bear on many traditions, monuments, and terminology that reinforces the terms white with the positive and black with the negative. In other cases, the words we use highlight the subjugation of one race, or individual, to another. As we move forward, the technology industry and professions must correct these archaic and painful terms as they appear in our documentation, our applications, and our words. The community identified a handful of these terms that we should begin changing immediately, they are:
- blacklist -> block, exclude, or deny list
- whitelist -> allow, or permit list
- blackhat -> unethical hacker
- whitehat -> ethical hacker
- master -> main, primary, or default
- slave -> secondary or replica
This idea and these terms are not an original thought, but I wanted to lend my voice to the growing chorus of individuals seeking change. I recommend a quick read, That Word Black, by Langston Hughes, which illustrates the problem in a lighthearted and pointed manner.