Hacker News Reader

Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"? That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc. This mob justice is abhorrent.

There are courts to deal with issues like racism. There are laws. Firing people because they say something you don't agree with is a very slippery slope indeed. Especially when it's not on company time. In my part of the world, it will likely result in the employer being taken to court.

View on HN

The issue I see is how "racial slurs in spoken language" are defined. There are plenty of people who assert that criticism of Israel's behaviour towards Palestine, or Xi Jinping, count as abhorrent racial slurs for instance.

> Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"?

Yes.

> That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc

It really doesn't. If you're "using" a racial slur, you're leveraging the definition of the word, which requires mal-intent by definition.

"Do not call me a ______" or "This word [written on the board] is a horrific hallmark of bigoted Americana that must be excluded from your vocabulary" is not the employment/use of a racial slur.

Using a slur does does not "require malintent by definition". Slurs can be used as terms of endearment, within jokes, etc.

> which requires mal-intent by definition

Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems. There are a lot of words which had their meaning changed or become less used with time to accommodate racial biases. Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore.

> Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems.

With racial slurs, always. 100% of the time.

It takes at least a generation of time for a word to evolve to that level of offense. You're describing terms which haven't evolved to that level of offense yet, words with which there's still a window of time to safely set the expectation that they shouldn't be used in a given manner.

> Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore.

True, though it's worth noting that we should be seeking the opinion of the impacted population about this rather than assuming it to be true (Ex: https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1271624977805185024 - a fairly qualified opinion around which language in tech, or infosec specifically, should be revisited).

> It takes at least a generation of time for a word to evolve to that level of offense.

Not true, maybe you are biased towards English words. Take Spanish or Portuguese, where the word “negro” (not to confuse w/ any English slur) really means “the color black” (etymologycally) and is thereby synonymous to black. It has always been used to show respect, in a less biased sense towards black people, because it really doesn’t carry any ideology in its semantics. But now, its use and meaning are changing towards similar slur words avoided in the US. It didn’t take a generation in such countries to change its meaning (politically), it is happening now, even though the word itself is the same, means the same, and had no problem at all a couple of years ago.

> Not true, maybe you are biased towards English words.

We're also discussing a chiefly American phenomenon, and while I recognize that English isn't the only language spoken in the United States, English is the primary language of business in the United States, and boycotts/terminations are squarely in the realm of business.

So, not biased; appropriately scoped.

It is mostly a global phenomenon, and the argument remains.

> It is mostly a global phenomenon, and the argument remains.

The article is clearly scoped to US issues. Language dynamics change when you move to other locales with other biases and prejudices. The article is even focused on US laws specifically.

Please read the article before you engage with others so that everyone's on the same page. I've disengaged from this conversation, sorry.

What a great assumption: one goes outside the scope of the article, therefore the same hasn't read the article, and then other perspectives cannot be brought in. It is only naïve to think this discussion isn't scoped in a broader perspective since the very phenomena is happening elsewhere as well, and the obvious impacts linguistics have in it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com