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GitHub, fuck your name change

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Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#721

Post by majjgepolja »

benrbray wrote: post #126
vmception wrote: post #47

I’m a black American and agree with everything that this person in London wrote. It is also a common criticism of the American “left”, and is entirely accurate. For everyone perplexed about black Americans and other people of color walking away from the left, its because you/they don't see us as equals that can be bothered by the exact same things that other Americans can be bothered by: being told what to think, wat…

In all fairness, this sort of silly business is more representative of the "Twitter left", comprised of cogs in a perpetual rage-inducing machine, than it is of "leftists" whose main objective is to address the limitations of capitalism, at varying degrees of willingness to work within the system vs burn it down. Of course, our media is run by billionaires so they capitalize on the identity politics to divide everyon…

I think more appropriate classification is something like the political compass.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#722

Post by wernercd »

root_axis wrote: post #677
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message . Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not…

I'd extend these virtue signaling "moments" to stuff like changing the names of sports teams and bases and all of the attempts to scrub "offensive" things from our lexicon.

It's not just limited to "black" but also American Indians, gay people, trans, etc.

These all strike me as Priviledged people being offended for others and trying to scream "LOOK AT ME I'M FIXING THINGS!!!" with stuff that matters to no one... and in the end, they widen the divide and make everything 100x worse with all the policies to "fix" racism/sexism/all'the'other'isms but making everything about race/sex/etc.

So divisive and counter productive uses of time that solve nothing.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#724

Post by skinkestek »

dustinmoris wrote: post #684
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

[flagged]

Not to mention that slave owners were probably more often referred to as owners, not masters.

When will Microsoft stop using deeply racist language such as e.g. owner and ownership?

Mentioned together with your example it is clear that this is lip service to hide their real racism and antisemitism.

/sarcasm

I wish we could stop this nonsense now :-/

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#726

Post by onetimeusename »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

I disagree for three reasons.

1) The burden falls disproportionately on Git maintainers and on people with large amounts of dependencies to the old word which is not a good way to distribute work (across tech workers) when making changes especially since some people will not even notice the change.

2) Not everyone uses Git each day and I am certain that people who continue to use the word "master" without knowing a thing about what Git is will be viewed as racist and morally inferior. E.g. (Master of Ceremonies, Master of Arts, etc.). Explain how a tech worker can agree that "master branch" is offensive but putting that they have a "Master of Science" on their CV is fine.

3) Somewhat arbitrarily changing words with a tenuous relation to racism seems like an extremely passive aggressive, murky, and dangerous path to go down. Not only does it lay a trap for people to be accused of being racist but if this is acceptable it is inconsistent with not removing all words associated with slavery. Even words with a distant relation to slavery.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#727

Post by phasnox »

> "I’m pissed off because they pretended to be doing good > and wanted me to congratulate them for it. Either do some real shit or stay silent. Stay the fuck out of our way and don’t pretend you care. Then we can all get on with our lives."

This

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#728

Post by tomp »

I'm Slavic, i.e. the ethic group of people that is the likely etymological origin of the word slave.

I'm not offended by the concept of slavery, or by the words master or slave. Indeed, I think it's important to keep this important concept in mind, so that we can solve the related problem of enslaved humans. In addition, I don't see a problem with these words being used in non-human concept - slavery is only a problem if slaves are human. Personally, I want to be the master to my (non-concious) computer slaves (well, better than the reverse, at least...).

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#729

Post by majjgepolja »

pron wrote: post #429

Saying that the left spends too much effort on rhetoric might be valid criticism, but focusing on it as reasons to "walk away from the left" (which not too many black Americans are doing, BTW) is disingenuous. Sure, the left talks about rhetoric, but it also fights for higher wages, civil liberties, healthcare, affirmative action, investment in education, workers' rights, and voting rights. It's fine not to like ever…

Are they same left though?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#730

Post by blub »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

I've seen many replies, but not this one, so I'll chime in.

I am not concerned about diversity in tech and this was never on my mind until it started getting shoved down everyone's throat by American companies and activists. Many European countries blindingly copy whatever comes out of the USA, so now it's here too.

For me it's just one more annoying thing I feel that some privileged brats that I never met and don't care to meet are forcing others to spend time on.

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