Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>]

I would let authors express their thoughts as they think best, and leave the decision of what words to rephrase with the RFC Editors.

They are our specialist in the English language, they have good judgement on appropriateness, and they have a good understanding of internal and external continuity of expression.

As to this draft I would drop it as it is really unnecessary given that what I describe is what I think the RFC Editors would do anyway.

Stewart


> On 28 Jul 2020, at 18:48, Barry Leiba <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Masataka-san, I understand what you're saying, but I'm trying to
> understand the details of your objection and what you would like done
> about it.  Please help me.
> 
> I understand and agree that whether certain words and phrases are or
> aren't offensive is very much a cultural issue.  It's clear that any
> plea that we stop using certain terms will necessarily be culturally
> dependent, and, thus <somewhere>-centric.  When people from the U.S.
> make such requests, they are bound to be U.S.-centric, and others in
> this conversation have given examples of things that might be
> bothersome to people from their cultures.
> 
> What I don't understand, and need to ask, are these:
> 
> - Do you think that, in general, it might be reasonable to avoid using
> certain words and phrases because a significantly large group of
> people find them offensive or exclusionary?  Or do you think that it
> is not reasonable to ask people to do that?
> 
> - How does your answer to the above question lead you into a
> recommendation about what to do with this situation in general?
> 
> - What would you want the IETF community to do with respect to the
> Internet draft in question: To expand it to include other terms,
> making it less U.S.-centric?  To change the explanation to make that
> less U.S.-centric?  To abandon the draft because any version of it
> would be too focused on one culture, and it can't be made inclusive
> enough?  Something else?
> 
> Thanks,
> Barry
> 
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 5:11 AM Masataka Ohta
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> Christian Hopps wrote:
>> 
>>> The document actually talks to these points with some references.
>> 
>> I'm saying the document and the references are all too
>> much US centric ignoring both the original and established
>> meaning of "slave".
>> 
>> As
>> 
>>        https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave
>> 
>>        originally "Slav"
>> 
>>        Grose's dictionary (1785) has under Negroe "A
>>        black-a-moor; figuratively used for a slave,"
>>        without regard to race.
>> 
>> it should be OK to stop using "Negroe", but not "slave",
>> which are originally for Slav, whites.
>> 
>>                                        Masataka Ohta
>> 
>