Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considered to have done something wrong, or they are considered to be untrustworthy. As a verb, blacklist can mean to put an individual or entity on such a list.
Origins of the term
The English dramatist
Philip Massinger used the phrase "black list" in his 1639 tragedy
The Unnatural Combat.
After the restoration of the English monarchy brought Charles II of England to the throne in 1660, a list of regicides named those to be punished for the execution of his father.
Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) of Andronicus that "His memory was stored with a black list of the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit, opposed his greatness, or insulted his misfortunes".
History
Employment
The first published reference to blacklisting of an employee dates from 1774. This became a significant employment issue in American
Mining community and
, where blacklisting could mean a complete loss of livelihood for workers who went on strike.
The 1901 Report of the Industrial Commission stated "There was no doubt in the minds of workingmen of the existence of the blacklisting system, though it was practically impossible to obtain evidence of it." It cited a news report that in 1895 a former conductor on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad committed suicide, having been out of work ever since a strike: "Wherever he went, the blacklist was ahead of him".
Though the USA National Labor Relations Act of 1935 outlawed punitive blacklists against employees who supported or criticised their employers, the practice continued in common use in the USA. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 made amendments which sustained blacklisting by affirming the right of employers to be Union busting, and by requiring trade union leaders to make which had the same effect as the Hollywood blacklist. Since then, lawsuits for unfair dismissal have led to blacklisting being covert or informal, but it remains common.
In 1981, following the PATCO workers' refusal to return to work, the Reagan administration fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order,
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist instituted in 1947 to block
and other Hollywood professionals who were purported to have
Communism sympathies from obtaining employment. It started by listing 151 entertainment industry professionals and lasted until 1960 when it was effectively broken by the acknowledgement that blacklisted professionals had been working under assumed names for many years.
Spanish Civil War and communists blacklisted
At least one Scottish volunteer (
George Drever) in the International Brigades who went to
Spain to fight
Francoist Spain's fascists and who was also well known in the British Communist Party in the 1930s was informed by the police Special Branch that his failure to progress in military or career was due to his volunteering in this cause and his beliefs.
[Gray, Daniel (2013). Homage to Caledonia: Scotland and the Spanish Civil War (International ed.). New York: Luath Press Ltd. pp.68, 267.]
World Wars I and II
During World War I, the British government adopted a "blacklist" based on an Order in Council of 23 December 1915, prohibiting British subjects from trade with specified firms and individuals in neutral countries; the lists were published in the
London Gazette.
In the summer of 1940, the Schutzstaffel printed a secret list called Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. ("Special Search List Great Britain") as part of Nazi Germany's preparations for invasion code-named Operation Sea Lion. When this booklet was found after the war, it was commonly called the Black Book and described as a blacklist.
Medical context
In 1907, the Transvaal Medical Union in South Africa blacklisted patients if they could not pay cash in advance.
There was a physical list kept by the community of
.
2004 Venezuelan recall referendum
After the 2004 Venezuelan recall referendum, ruling party deputy Luis Tascón published on his website a database of more than 2,400,000 Venezuelans who had signed the petition to recall President Hugo Chávez, together with their national identity card numbers (
cédula).
[ El Universal, 21 April 2005, Tascón: Alto jefe de Súmate vendió la lista por miles de dólares] The list "made
sectarianism official", and Venezuelans who signed against Chávez were denied jobs, benefits, and documents, and often subjected to harassment.
Once the list was posted, Chávez, on a
Venezolana de Televisión broadcast, encouraged use of the website to "verify illicit use of national identity cards". Roger Capella, Minister of Health declared that "those who signed against President Chávez would be fired because they are committing an act of terrorism".
[ El Universal, 21 March 2004, "Firmar contra Chávez es un acto de terrorismo"] There was a public outcry, in particular by the organization Súmate, and because of reports that people who worked for the government were fired, denied work, or denied issuance of official documents because of their appearance on the list.
[ Chavez's Blacklist of Venezuelan Opposition Intimidates Voters] In July 2004, access to the database under management of Comando Maisanta was granted to members of the "Batallones Bolivarianos de Internet (BBI)" (Internet Bolivarian Battalions), which previously had to register on Tascón's website to gain access under the strict requisite that they had not signed the petition for the referendum.
Zionism
Following the October 7 attacks, singers who posted their support for Israel on social media reportedly were blacklisted at venues where they typically performed.
A professional gamer was barred from a competition for similar reasons.
In Chicago, Jewish therapists who said they would treat a Zionist patient were added to a blacklist.
British sociologist
David Hirsh noted that Zionist academics “have not been able to publish, people were not able to do the things that you need to do in order to build a career in academia”.
After having a scheduled lecture canceled, historian and sociologist Izabella Tabarovsky said that "as a former Soviet citizen she was 'deeply familiar' with this kind of silencing".
Computing
In computing, a blacklist is an
access control system that denies entry to a specific list (or a defined range) of users, programs, or network addresses.
Terminology concerns
In 2018, a medical journal commentary regarding predatory publishing
[Houghton, F., & Houghton, S. (2018). "“Blacklists” and “whitelists”: a salutary warning concerning the prevalence of racist language in discussions of predatory publishing."] was published, arguing that
whitelist,
blacklist, among other terms, reinforce existing racial biases and should be avoided in medical literature. The commentary gained public attention in Summer 2020 following the George Floyd protests in the United States
wherein a black man died in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, sparking protests against police brutality.
The commentary cites examples of the use of black as a shorthand for disreputable sources and other negative judgements, and white for trustworthiness and safety. The article also notes the origins of blacklist as a label for censure and punishment of workers involved in labor unions, and that early use of the term coincides with the rise of slavery in the Americas, but does not claim its etymology as referring directly to skin color. However, the authors criticize the continued use of blacklist and similar language as inappropriate and harmful due to the ubiquity of white and black as descriptors of racial groups in common parlance, arguing that this association results in use of this type of language perpetuates racism, regardless of its linguistic origin.
Conflict around this issue often emerges in computing industries where whitelist and blacklist are prevalent (e.g. "IP whitelisting"
Some critics of these terminology changes question the interpretation of the deprecated language as racial in nature due to the linguistic root of blacklist as being most likely derived from the term black book,
See also
Further reading
