GitHub moving away from 'master' and 'slave' branch names amid racial tensions
businessinsider.comBut we can still pay for GitHub using MasterCard.
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.
I hope, as part of the movement to clean the language of touchy usage, the word "slave" also gets dropped from English and other languages since it derives from "Slavic" people who, during the Roman times, were captured and used for unpaid labour.
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.
And not to be taken wrongly: I do believe BLM movement is needed, and the only problem with it is that it's a bit late.
But superficial "support" like this is meaningless.
you have to wonder, where does this end?
In the words of John Oliver, "somewhere". It ends somewhere. You don't do nothing because you don't know exactly where it might end.
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.
But it is true that the word "slave" makes me feel bad about my Slavic ancestors being enslaved, and it makes me feel even worse that the name of their tribe has become to be used for such egregious practices. Not enough for me to complain at several language standards bodies, though, and I do understand the history of it. Just like Slavic people calling Germans "mutes" (Nemci) is offensive too, but as neighbours, they either met people who used "words" (slovo) or were unintelligible (nem meaning mute).
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?
Yes, I have had that discussion with someone that didn't like the use of the term. It has come up a few times when I have explained our infrastructure to her regarding master/slave architectures also the term 'master bedroom', because it sounds a bit too much like where the plantation master stays. That doesn't mean she is severely offended, she just doesn't like it and she isn't particularly sensitive to things like that normally, but it has come up several times before.
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.