Whitelisted

Posted by Steve on February 26, 2004

In Reply to: Whitelisted posted by Brian from Shawnee on February 24, 2004

: : Oh, and to think this all came about because I heard something wrong...or mispronounced. I appreciate all the responses. I've never participated in an on-line forum like this and I must say I'm surprised by the volume of feedback. Thank you all very much for enlightening me. Somewhat in response to the comment on Kipling, let me add that white can mean "clean" (having nothing to do with race), such as the words of the Hebrew King David, who asks God to wash him in order that he might be "whiter than snow." I don't think I (or anyone) could ever truly pray that prayer while maintaining an attitude of racism or hatred.

: Here where I work, we have spam-blocking software. If you get e-mail that's tagged as spam but you don't want it to be, you can submit the sender's address to the Whitelist. If you get e-mail that's not tagged as spam but you want it to be, you submit the sender's address to the Blocklist. Not the Blacklist, but the Blocklist. Goofy, if you ask me, but they didn't ask me.

In this age of hypersensitiveness(if that's really a word), everyone is afraid to offend so even terms that have no racial origin have been "blacklisted" now. In my opinion, when I can't refer to the powerplant on my plane as an engine in fear of offending an indian, things have gone too far.

but I guess I'm a little off the thread now, so I'll just end by saying that the "mighty white" phrase really does not, and never should have had any place in cultured vernacular.