Draft:Inclusive Information Technology (IT) Terminology

Following the historic response to the murder of George Floyd, organizations including Apple, IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Red Hat, and GitHub took a step back to reflect on the opportunities to evolve in ways that are more inclusive of diverse perspectives and experiences. From IBM starting the Racial Equity in Design initiative lead by Nigel Prentice to a number of self-organizing inclusive IT language committees, these actions helped to elevate conversations related to diversity, equity and inclusion across Big Tech, and even lead to the launch of startups working to systemic issues across hiring, talent development and AI.

Inclusive IT Terminology committees across companies, universities and institutions not only worked together to flag terms deemed harmful or historically rooted in discriminatory practices, but lead the way to enabling software and documentation professionals to address and update code and docs to incorporate these preferred terms. A Forbes article from 2021 sums it up well:

Using inclusive language means avoiding expressions and terms that could be considered sexist, racist, exclusive, or biased in any way against certain groups of people. Race and gender are usually top of mind when considering diversity and inclusion, but many other aspects should be considered. Language must evolve over the years so as not to exclude people. It is also important to underline that the goal is not just to avoid hurtful or offensive language. It is really about making everyone feel welcome, from a developer reading a manual to a kid playing a game to a business person signing up for a new email service.

Terms frequently highlighted by various organizations focused on language with a positive and negative binary or normalize an act of subjugation.

Examples of this language modernization effort include:

Master / Slave -> Primary / secondary, tertiary...

Black list / White list -> Deny List / Allow List