When I first heard about someone being "grandfathered in", I (incorrectly) assumed the analogy was "old people are senile and can't be expected to adapt to new laws, they get a free pass". That is, it's modeled on an exemption for (those old enough to be) grandfathers, not based on who you have as a grandfather. And thus, if anything, is a smear against the old rather than black people (or grandmothers).

With that said, as others are noting, it does, for some people, evoke the Reconstruction-era practice, so is a bit more complex than it might seem.

I am neither white nor black, but I live in the US. Every time I hear someone say "Grandfathered", I think about the origin of the word.

I'm just one data point, but you said "no one actually associates the modern use" and that's untrue.

> The thing is no one actually associates the modern use of the term with this history.

This is plainly false.

Perhaps not “no one” but it’s a very, very small group. If you’re willing to cater to a small enough pool of potential offended people, well, you can find someone offended by just about anything. Maybe we need to ban language?

It’s amazing how much people will argue about precise programming terminology here and then anything about race is suddenly “it’s just words who cares?”

Because it's the wrong solution. No words should be banned. Speech and behaviour need moderation, and there are no perfect hard rules. Offensive people need to be disciplined. Stop trying the easy way out that accomplishes only to limit freedom of speech.

The term gay has changed in meaning over the last 50 years. The Flintstones opening sequence uses the phrase "we'll have a gay old time" which obviously doesn't fit the modern definition. Do people still commonly consider the phrase "a gay old time" as equivalent to an enjoyable time?

Even wiktionary[1] considers it a dated phrase.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gay_old_time