GitHub moving away from 'master' and 'slave' branch names amid racial tensions(businessinsider.com) |
GitHub moving away from 'master' and 'slave' branch names amid racial tensions(businessinsider.com) |
So yeah. Until that is banned, I’m not believing this genuinely reflects anyone’s actual belief besides trying to score cheap PR points during the BLM riots.
Please do not refer to the practice of abusing people and forcing them to work as "slavery" either.
I am exaggerating a bit, but the point stands: master might have a bad connotation when it comes to enslavement, but the term has and has had other meanings prior to being used in that manner.
Since this discussion went so far as to touch on black- and whitelists, I wonder if we are to stop from black symbolizing darkness (you know, night) and ill, and white from symbolizing light (day) and good.
But superficial "support" like this is meaningless.
Should we remove confederate statues from places of honor? Where does it end?
I'm not all for word policing, but if some words I am using are making people feel bad, I don't see any problem in trying to change those words. As long as removing these words is coming out of mutual respect and not from laws that are infringing on our rights of free speech.
Which is the case here. I don't think anyone is forcing anyone to remove words like master and slave.
And I get your argument (yes, I am free to fight for the abolishment of the word "slave" in languages where it's derived from the root Slav), but "forcing" here is indeed happening through somewhat modern means: public, online, armchair shaming and harrasment. If you do not see that, you are dishonest imho.
As a case in point, you come with an argument how the word "master" (which is what the OP was about) is "making people feel bad" (I blame all those MScs too), but are you offended by it? Or at least heard from someone directly who is? Read an actual piece where someone describes it is so? If you do, please let me know that's the case, since otherwise I can only assume your goal is to shame me into appearing as if I have no empathy. If none of these, who are you arguing for?
The more you learn about our American history of slavery and oppression, little things like that are just kind of a little dig and reminder of that terrible history and the fact that some of it still remains.
I definitely am aware of the armchair shaming that goes on. But I highly doubt that cases like the naming of the master branch would receive anything more than a few tweets. People are just trying to make any easy change they can to show they are -for- the movement. Because honestly, it's a difficult problem to address.