GitHub, fuck your name change • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#571

Post by nailer » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

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…

> "walk away from the left" (which not too many black Americans are doing, BTW)

Here's the BBC, a center left news website:

> The group that saw the biggest increase in support for Trump compared to 2016, however, was black men.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54972389

Here's Forbes - check the last 4 elections:

https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5fa99cf43b8...

from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/11/09/no-tru...

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#572

Post by elygre » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

I had zero ownership of the name “master”. That just happened, and I lived with it.

I will remain having zero ownership to the name “main”. That just happened, and I will live fine with that, too!

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#573

Post by gher-shyu3i » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #530

Disclaimer: I'm a white engineer who is now a VP. I also have a black daughter. I can't speak for the black experience(s) because I'm not black, but I'm also acutely invested in seeing things get better in terms of race relations and opportunities for all people. A few thoughts: 1. Words matter. They aren't the most important thing per se, but they shouldn't be ignored. Over time, all these little changes do add up.…

Why isn't the discussion that it's also quite racist to associate the word "slave" with Blacks/Africans? People don't seem to know any history when they say that. It's not only Africans that got enslaved, peoples of all ethnicities did.

It's just virtue signaling at the end of the day. It's ridiculous watch everyone fight over this while missing the root cause.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#574

Post by the_resistence » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

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…

I really appreciate this post. Somehow I think the media and its funders are trying to drive the wedge between similarly thinking people as hard as they can.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#575

Post by honkdaddy » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

cheez0r wrote: post #552

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…

This. These changes to remove subconscious bias from our language are necessary. They are microaggressions which the average user doesn't even realize exist- but which do harms to some individuals in our society. This may be a minority group within our society- even a very small fraction of a percent- but removing biases which are perceived as harmful is one way that we as an organization demonstrate that we are bein…

>They are microaggressions which the average user doesn't even realize exist- but which do harms to some individuals in our society.

Just so I'm understanding this point of view correctly, every time I or any other dev types git checkout master, a micro-aggression is taking place and someone somewhere is indirectly suffering?

I just can't take that line of thinking seriously, I'm sorry.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#576

Post by blacktriangle » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

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…

Look at you, you can't even respond to a black American who disagrees with you without telling him how to think, you are the American left.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#577

Post by nailer » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

xkiq wrote: post #543

xroche wrote: post #237

> “Meritocracy!”, I hear you cry. “They pick from the most talented students. The ones that worked the hardest to get into the most elite schools. The black students should have just worked harder” Crazy idea: if companies that do virtue signaling on inclusivity were paying their taxes, decent schools could be funded and we would not have so many of those issues. But instead, those companies are actively lobbying to…

Please avoid using "virtue signaling" and other thought-terminating clichés

How does stating that a position is being taken due to optics rather than effectiveness 'terminate thought'?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#578

Post by throwaway8834 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

Background: I'm white, my grandfather who is sadly no longer with us, was captured as a slave in the early 1940s forced to work on the Burma Railway, also known as "Death Railway". Content warning: if you Google Image Burma Railway, you're going to see things other than just the railway.

In all my years of pushing to and pulling from master branches, I have not once made an internal association between that action and slavery. Until now.

Offence is subjective of course and having never made this stretch of a link between a master branch and slavery, it is in no way and has never been personally offensive to me. People are different and I accept that others do take offence to this kind of language. But it is a stretch. It is a word that when taken out of context has other meanings.

If a company such as GitHub are saying that this is wrong and must be changed, my question is why now? Why not 2 years ago or 5 years ago? Is it something that wasn't considered offensive and now is? There is so much outrage about this particular subject which doesn't actually solve any real problems. There are of course real issues that we need to get on top of. Contemporary slavery for example. Slavery is still massively at large in many places of the world including and especially the U.S.A. Just because it's gone underground it does not mean that it doesn't exist. We need to do something about it.

This name change only seems to be creating more separation between us all when the world needs us to come together as one to solve the real problems, of which there are many.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#579

Post by EGreg » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

So are we still for changing

  blacklist and whitelist
     to
  blocklist and allowlist

Or are we scrapping that one also due to the underrepresentation of PoC in tech and the statistical small sample of 3 guys (and they are probably guys) out of 250 people not being enough to make a policy?

If you ask me, the problem with underrepresentation is all upstream. Whether it’s women in tech, or Black people in classical music etc. the solution isn’t to remove the audition screen and do affirmative action downstream. The idea is to fix it upstream.

Also with many other things such as non biodegradeable plastic. Why are our “solutions” involving a massive change to all the individual people not to use straws or plastic bags when this has a tiny effect on the result, while disrupting many people’s lives? Instead, it takes pressure off from the real solution: pressuring the Capitalist corporations to switch from non biodegradeable plastic to something sustaiable, by taxing the negative externalities and internalizing the costs TO THEM instead of offloading them to the consumer.

We have to practice upstream thinking and not be afraid to speak openly about the SOURCE of all that plastic. If you want more Carribbean musicians for example, consider your immigration and visa policy. If you want less plastic, ask why companies switched from glass bottles. I’d rather have a directed policy upstream than trying to use tons of bandaids downstream.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#580

Post by agloeregrets » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

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…

This! Virtue signaling is worthless, but it does keep ideas fresh in people's minds when you experience it and that isn't worthless.