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GitHub, fuck your name change

mooseyanon.medium.com

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Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#821

Post by selimthegrim »

mola wrote: post #816
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…

Just a slight perspective, I'm not from the US, I'm from israel. We have a black jewish population here, they yearned their return to Zion(israel) for thousands of years. The state of israel, invested money and effort in organizing their return. Non of their ancestors were slaves. We have social issues, mostly because the huge differences in culture and exposure to technological and educational advances. And the fact…

Surely that episode where they tried to give birth control to the Ethiopian refugees in their food didn’t help things?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#822

Post by encryptluks2 »

jamil7 wrote: post #31
RawaHorse wrote: post #18

Maybe it's just me but, outside of tech contexts, I associate "master" and "slave" much more with bdsm than I do with actual slave ownership.

Maybe we can start using dom/sub instead of master/slave in tech.

Dom/sub actually have negative history regarding women's rights.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#823

Post by kizer »

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…

Mixing the politics of the day with business is bound to result in a bunch of low-effort “equal justic initiative” black and white styles block divs.

The best thing a company can do the way I see it is to _dedicate_ a cut of regular profit to a black charity. Like, on a regular basis.

Money can affect serious change in the right “hands”.

JUST MOVE MONEY TO BLACK CHARITIES OR ASSOCIATIONS. ITS CALLED DIVISION OF LABOR. Then, do your best to be inclusive intentionally. That’s the answer IMO.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#824

Post by mokarma »

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…

Don't forget "Scrum Master", which seems to be a term everyone is fine with.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#825

Post by aksss »

newacct583 wrote: post #800
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…

That's exactly how I see it too. These performative bits of nonsense are how we as a society build consensus, in this case something like "racial injustice is real, it matters, and it needs to be addressed with action". And by all getting together and renaming our white/blacklists and master branches and slave devices, we're all agreeing that this is important. And.... yeah, it's also a way to find the people who are…

So it’s a purity test? Many people are just wired to reject this conformist line of thinking from the very starting point. You’re saying, let’s all do this pointless activity so we can see who has an attitude problem. It reminds me so much of how children are treated in schools or churches, and I really chafe at it. I couldn’t care less about your nominal cause or sense of self-righteousness, it’s the attitude and behavior of you imagining your fellow citizens are children that strikes me as offensive and drives resistance. I don’t doubt your good intentions but this way of thinking about solutions (your tools) is rather poisonous and places the banner under which you use them in pretty bad company.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#826

Post by runarberg »

otikik wrote: post #250
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…

> the American “left” I like that you quote it there. I don't understand why aren't there more real left (no quotes) organizations or parties gaining traction in the US. It seems as if it should have happened "naturally" one or two generations ago.

They are. For example Seattle has a council member from the Socialist Alternative party. There are a few Democratic congress representatives that are socialists (both in state and national level). Some socialist policies have successfully been pushed by socialist party members (e.g. the current medicare for all bill has around 100 democratic house members backing it up).

However the confinement of the current democratic system in the USA today simply doesn’t allow for third parties to gain national traction. There are mathematical models that proves this fact. For the real left to get socialist parties to the national assembly some democratic reforms needs to happen first.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#827

Post by armandososa »

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…

> where "white" means anyone who isn't black

Whoa, whoa, wait a minute there. I have mexican-indigenous blood running through my veins and coloring my skin and all I can say is this: no matter how much you've suffered, you don't get to minimize other people‘s suffering.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#828

Post by Camas »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #356
Symbiote wrote: post #222

> Out of curiosity I asked my manager, who is like 20 yrs older than me, if he had ever been stopped and searched, he said not once in his life. I had a similar conversation when a black colleague was late for work, having been stopped and searched by the police in London. The other 10 (white) developers were all shocked, but he said it as casually as someone might report they'd missed the train, or had a puncture on…

I mean, an interesting question that gets underreported is: what is the rate at which searches of black people find evidence, vs white people, per search? Police just want crimes (ironically); if one visually identifiable population group gives them more crimes, they'll preferentially search that one. Hell, it's even worse - if you see a crowd, and you know that, for instance, to pull numbers out of my ass, black peo…

>Positive outcome rates are similar whatever people’s ethnicity is. Around 25% of searches result in some action being taken.

https://fullfact.org/crime/stop-and-search-england-and-wales...

That's for London

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#829

Post by alasdair_ »

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,…

You may want to try out one of a number of empirical implicit bias tests at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

These tests have been administered to large numbers of people and on average, almost every single person that has taken the test has scored some level of implicit bias. As a result, it's very likely (but not certain) that you ARE unaware of your implicit bias.

Of course, if you take the tests and score perfectly, you'll now be able to demonstrate empirically that you have no measurable implicit bias and will have an answer to those people who insist you do.

The reason why this is different to the walking on water statement, is that there are hundreds of thousands of data points all showing implicit bias is almost universal, whereas there are zero data points showing people can walk on water after believing in Jesus.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#830

Post by akerro »

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 think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement.

What do you mean? Name change of a default branch clearly fixes issues of racism in the software industry. Racism in IT = gone

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