Letter to the editor

Dear Editor

February’s Anglican Journal article, ‘Rethinking darkness and light; Leaders in the Lutheran and United churches on language and anti-Blackness’, describes the damaging impact of language and its power to perpetuate systemic racism.

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I couldn’t help noticing in March’s Crosstalk the name of this Diocesan document: WEBMAIL-OUTLOOK-SPAM-WHITELIST-BLACKLIST-filters.pdf …exploring further, I discovered white represents ‘trusted’ information and black represents spam.

According to the article ‘Whitelist,’ ‘Blacklist’: The New Debate Over Security Terminology  (dice.com) industry leaders are working towards change. Although still used by some, these terms are no longer used by others, such as the British Intelligence Agency and Cisco’s cybersecurity. In fact, as the article explains, the terms are unclear and must be explained to new employees. I imagine people of colour are harmed listening to such explanations and using these terms, while white people continue to hear the message, ‘white is best’.

I ask the Diocese to change the document and republish the link in Crosstalk.

Karen Luyendyk
(she/her)
St. Paul’s in Almonte

Editor’s note:
Thank you for bringing this instance to our attention. The document has been edited to rely on the terms Trusted Sender and Spam Sender. The new link for instructions on how to increase email security is :  https://www.ottawa.anglican.ca/images/Notices/trusted-sender_spam-sender.docx