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GitHub, fuck your name change

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Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#801

Post by beowulfey »

hintymad wrote: post #763
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 don't get this "implicit bias" concept. According to media and social media, if I deny that I'm a racist, then I'm just not aware of my implicit bias. Honest question, how is it this different from: 1, If you believe in Jesus, then you can walk on water. If you can't walk on water, then you don't truly believe in Jesus. 2, Chinese saying, "杀人诛心“，meaning that accusing one's motive is worse than killing that person,…

The viewpoint stems from the idea that implicit biases mean racism is the default state. To do something is to be anti-racist, which requires energy. To do nothing means racism persists, which could be considered pro-racism. A big part of this definition is trying to realign it with a temporary modifier, one to be avoided, but not a permanent tag.

The difference from your examples is that an act or attitude can be racist, but that doesn’t make YOU racist. You are not defined by a single event any more than a single belief defines your broader theology.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#802

Post by CountDrewku »

onetimeusename wrote: post #726
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 t…

"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."

Honestly I find it terrifying that high ranking tech people can't see the cognitive dissonance they're showing.

Either they're lying in a pitiful attempt to fit in with the silicon valley leftist elites or they're actually intellectually inept. Either way it's not good.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#803

Post by throwaway894345 »

> It signals to other privileged white boys, “hey, come work for us, we pretend to care more than all our competitors xoxo”. This shit aint for us, it never was.

This, a thousand times. It was never about black people, it was always about wealthy, largely white progressives comforting themselves with the narrative that they're valiant defenders of black folks (namely from those horrible oppressors, middle- and lower-class whites) without having to do anything. This is why "defund the police" is supported by a majority of wealthy progressives but a small minority of black Americans.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#804

Post by cultofmetatron »

Anecdotally I admin but I've seen tech's filter for black people first hand.

A few years ago, I invited a friend of mine to stay at my place in SF while he works on learning to code and break into the SF Tech scene. IN no time at all, he qualified to get into hack reactor and quickly fell into a mentoring role.

Despite this, it took several months to almost a year before he got his first fulltime gig. Before, I always thought maybe there was something else I wasn't seeing. In this case, I knew he was good. I worked with in personally and knew what he was capable of. I know plenty of engineers that weren't as good at engineering that were getting jobs within a month. I coached him on his interviewing skils but nothign was moving the needle for him.

It wasn't until he got a "internship" position by a diversity initiative at a prominent startup that he finally started getting work as an engineer. He excelled at that role and now he works there as a fulltime engineer.

That someone with his ability had such a hard time getting a foothold was all the proof that I needed that something is up with tech and a bias against black men.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#805

Post by deadbytes »

geekraver wrote: post #612
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…

While there may be plenty of people of all races who were not offended by the name, when you operate at the scale of a GitHub there is going to be some percentage who are. Some of them will complain. A company like GitHub then has two main options: change the name, or defend not changing the name. Whichever one they pick is going to cause various forms of backlash from various people, but it’s pretty obvious that cha…

No, this is a terrifying precedent to set.

You are completely inverting democracy.

If 98% of people vote that something isn't offensive, and 2% vote that it is, and your takeaway from this is "the thing is offensive", then how can anything ever be determined to be not offensive?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#807

Post by ffggvv »

>> “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”. I guess mummy and daddy paying $20 mil for a new library to get me a seat at an ‘elite’ school is still meritocracy eh?

yes everyone who gets into these schools donates a library. thats why harvard has 10,000 libraries. theres no jewish or asian students whose parents came here with a penny and worked menial jobs. its all rich white people.

and im sure if they didnt change the name this person would write an article about how they didnt change it because they are racist. racist if you do. racist if you dont.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#809

Post by aksss »

drngxn wrote: post #706
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…

> What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit, in my case one embedded deeply in my fingers, something that I do every day without realizing that I'm doing it This is the entire point, this sentence right here.

The sentence right there is what a lot of people find inane and absurd, though, too. It’s often less a case of people not “getting” what the nominal intention is; it’s that people do get the nominal intention and think it’s an idiotic waste of time that’s being done to satisfy a pretty ignorant and narrow-minded view of language and history. It also has no limiting principle to what gets targeted except the energy of ninnies. It’s worth considering now where your line of tolerance is going to be - the point where you think, “okay, this has become too ridiculous, even for me”. Is it when I suggest removing “chain” from blockchain because it evokes slavery? Point being that many people see this issue with GitHub as having crossed the line of absurdity already.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#810

Post by loveistheanswer »

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…

>So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech.

This is an extremely privileged and dangerously ignorant point of view.

There are more people living in slavery across the world right now than ever before in human history.

Maybe we should reflect on that fact instead of simply covering up words which make us uncomfortable in a vain attempt to expiate self imposed guilt for being born with a particular shade of skin.

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