Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

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
>