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GitHub, fuck your name change

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Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#921

Post by nvarsj »

nvarsj wrote: post #656
_nckn wrote: post #592

I'm Asian, wasn't born in America and didn't grew up in America as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't feel annoyed to change that term. I'm only annoyed if someone guilt trip me if I don't change the name out of ignorance (i.e, I don't follow politics, no time for social media). I don't think I have any bias against women or minority in tech. Changing main or master or slave doesn't ring a bell or evoke…

It's not an American thing, this happens everywhere. I moved to London from the US a few years ago, and when I first moved here, interacting with unfamiliar cultures, I made these kind of mistakes all the time.

I thought some people might find it amusing the kind of mistakes I made. Here are a couple.

I asked my Pakistani heritage boss when he immigrated, innocently. Note I'm an immigrant to the US myself and now the UK, so I thought it was not a bad question to ask. He's British born though, and considered himself a British citizen foremost. And given the rampant racism in the UK against those of Pakistani origin (many white Brits don't consider anyone Pakistani to be "proper British"), well you could see how he might be offended at my question. Fortunately he just laughed at my rudeness.

Another time, I made a bad joke to a French colleague of mine who I'd been working with for a couple weeks. I think he said I didn't seem like a normal American, and I responded saying I didn't think he looked French, not wearing a striped shirt and a beret. Oh man, that really dug my grave right there. Saying he didn't look French was probably the greatest insult I could ever have said. He is of Turkish heritage, and Turkish people have been persecuted and treated poorly for a long time in France, including lots of racism based on "they don't look French". He was angry with me for a very long time over that. I apologized to him profusely, saying I was just an idiot American, and I think he forgave me eventually.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#922

Post by nullserver »

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…

20 years ago, Now and then someone would make a fuss about hard drives.

Specifically master and slave drives.

Wasn’t a common complaint and was treated with eye rolls. Maybe others had different experiences.

Last few years there has been a dramatic change in fringe groups becoming the masters of speech.

At least for those outside the Bay Area.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#923

Post by jimbob45 »

oaiey wrote: post #619
aaronbasssett wrote: post #606

Please name one country that never had slavery?

Never is a hard word. Let me explain: In the US the white were masters and the black were slaves. A white was rarely a slave, a black person was likely a slave. And slavery was not abolished that long ago. In MANY countries people of color X enslaved people of color X. So now - many generations later - no one knows anymore who was slave and who was master. So the term master is insignificant for the individuals in th…

Less than 1% of American whites during slavery owned slaves. In fact, the most identifying characteristic of American slave-owners was Judaism. You could just as easily say that Jews were masters and blacks were slaves, although your argument would be equally as incorrect and ignorant. To say that "whites were masters" is just as ignorant as saying "all 1940s Germans were Nazis".

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#924

Post by dogman144 »

Crux of it:

> We’re going to change the branch name because it could be seen as offensive but we’re still going to sell police facial recognition software that is biased against black people and women.

Some parts of tech are populated and led by 29-35 y/os who were sold a bill of goods in their early 20's about how virtuous and pro-social their tech was. "Making a better place through....", well it turned out to be to through surveillance-y adtech and working with China but not the DoD because "war is bad."

So much of tech's labor challenges right now seem driven by the above.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#926

Post by ipsum2 »

Narann wrote: post #33

> So while the tech community was rushing around, trying to do their best impression of a black square post on Insta I remember thinking, “oh for fucks sake, they’ve completely missed the point”. Why? They forgot to talk to people who are actually members of the black community. In practice, big techs don't care about POC, they care about mobs. "Inclusive" words is just what make mobs happy and it's cheaper to do tha…

POC means people of color, aka non-white, yes? There's a lot of Indian and east Asian representation in the tech workforce. You should be more specific about what you mean.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#928

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#929

Post by aksss »

jimbob45 wrote: post #747
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 vehemently disagree. Such virtue signaling is okay when one is on empirically high moral ground. If the lesson were “stay away from snakes” or “stop, drop, and roll”, there would be no possible debate over those topics and we might all agree that a frequent refresher would be welcome. However, there remains considerable discussion over oppression, race, and politics. For you to shoehorn in your personal viewpoint h…

I think you mean "objectively", not "empirically". Your word choice is problematic as it invokes the authority and propriety of empire as the most rational form of governance. While we're arguing for linguistic purity tests, let's maintain some principled consistency here.
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