@darkwiiplayer
I see your point and appreciate the effort you put in explaining your point of view.
In an ideal world, no word would be harmful.
In the world we live, we have to consider social implications, cultural background, current context and impact of our behaviour.
Saying "blackboard" doesn't make you racist and it's clear that has nothing to do with human beings or skin color.
However, saying "whiteboard" makes your language more inclusive and it's a clear statement about your social and political views about some crucial topics.
You say: "Green means good and nobody would think of connecting this to green eye colour.".
True, because as far as I know nobody has been discriminated, persecuted or harmed just for having green eyes.
True, because as far as I know nobody has been discriminated, persecuted or harmed just for having green eyes.
Fair point, but for one that doesn't apply to red haired people; but it also underlines that this is (as you have also said) highly dependent on cultural background.
To underline some more why I think this is so relevant: I'm from Germany and, while it was definitely a thing here too, racism based on skin colour isn't really as big of a cultural issue here; but instead anything related to the holocaust is probably very comparable to the skin-colour issue in the USA (take the word gas for example) and yet I don't see any attempt to impose this on the rest of the world.
And of course I'm not criticising anybody who does decide to change their language or suggest it to others; my problem is strictly with cases where this "suggestion" turns into grandstanding, like using a bot that actively nags people about their choice of words in a chat.
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@darkwiiplayer I see your point and appreciate the effort you put in explaining your point of view.
In an ideal world, no word would be harmful.
In the world we live, we have to consider social implications, cultural background, current context and impact of our behaviour.
Saying "blackboard" doesn't make you racist and it's clear that has nothing to do with human beings or skin color.
However, saying "whiteboard" makes your language more inclusive and it's a clear statement about your social and political views about some crucial topics.
You say: "Green means good and nobody would think of connecting this to green eye colour.".
True, because as far as I know nobody has been discriminated, persecuted or harmed just for having green eyes.
Fair point, but for one that doesn't apply to red haired people; but it also underlines that this is (as you have also said) highly dependent on cultural background.
To underline some more why I think this is so relevant: I'm from Germany and, while it was definitely a thing here too, racism based on skin colour isn't really as big of a cultural issue here; but instead anything related to the holocaust is probably very comparable to the skin-colour issue in the USA (take the word gas for example) and yet I don't see any attempt to impose this on the rest of the world.
And of course I'm not criticising anybody who does decide to change their language or suggest it to others; my problem is strictly with cases where this "suggestion" turns into grandstanding, like using a bot that actively nags people about their choice of words in a chat.