I’m honestly a bit shocked at the reactionary nature of this entire thread. I knew HN had a bunch of conservative and libertarian tech bros but…holy shit. This whole thread is unhinged.
For one thing, none of this discussion has anything to do with the article. People in this thread just want to chime in to say that “master” wasn’t racist. But it’s racist for them to chime in like that because it’s so unrelated to the article: they just want to get off their chest the fact that they don’t want change to happen, they want to stick with the unequal status quo.
It would be like chiming in with a negative reaction to the Washington Commanders name change in a comment thread on an article about Indigenous Americans. That’s completely unrelated and was just an opportunity for people to show that they liked it back in the “good old days” when daily life could be peppered with small reminders of prejudice.
In what universe is master/slave not racist? The literal slave owning class in America who only owned slaves of one race came up with terminology that uses slavery as an analogy. The terminology comes from the early 20th century when slavery was in living memory. I don’t know how it isn’t at least unintentionally racist.
Not related to your comment directly but to others in this thread: the New York Times is very descriptive about why they capitalize Black and it makes perfect sense.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black...
“White” isn’t a cultural group, because you can be white Italian, Hispanic, Greek, American, etc. In all of those cases, the capitalized word refers to the cultural group.
But in the United States “Black” tends to refer to not only a skin color but a distinct cultural group, which is why it was capitalized.
It’s really simple and obvious but the reactionary majority can’t seem to handle doing something simple to show that they have some cultural awareness. But I guess it would be too “woke” to use your brain.
And yeah, white people should have guilt in America. They still treat Black people poorly even subconsciously. Case in point: this lawsuit.
> I knew HN had a bunch of conservative and libertarian tech bros but…holy shit. This whole thread is unhinged.
Many people on that thread seem to not be american so thinking of them through a US political lens may not be pertinent - the politically-loaded, US-centric, source of the change may also be the source of the frustration with it in the first place (see the bottom of this reply).
Just on this point, I consider myself left-leaning (and from what I can see, US democrats would mostly be at the center - and Biden center-right - of the political spectrum in my country), yet I share the point of view of the other commenters regarding the "master" change and the ways it is pushed.
> In what universe is master/slave not racist
For the "master" part at least, I would say most people do not link it to slavery because most people are not from an english-speaking country.
For me, when I read master I may just think about master recordings. That does not mean that it may or may not have a racism-linked origin (I have no idea about that) but understand that many people around the world don't do the connection. Then, as it is mostly US people that push for other to change that name vehemently, this make many people think that those are americans that want to push their current political ideology down someone else's throat (which has a completely different cultural and political background) and may elicit a strong response.
Maybe I could have used less politically-charged language, but in my eyes it was necessary to surface the connection. I think that in the US, a very specific political group rallies around opposition to social justice, and that group has a tendency to try and hide their underlying motivations (e.g., using dogwhistling).
Talk about dog whistling! Why don’t you actually say what you mean: “I think people who disagree with my beliefs are unworthy and their opinions don’t count.”
If you disagree with my desire to not harm others, the inverse is that you want to harm others. No, that opinion doesn’t count, and is unworthy. My intolerance of that opinion is not hypocrisy.
The comment tried to smear opponents of the social justice movement as dog-whistling bigots. But the social justice movement is not, in many people’s very legitimate opinions, the right way to achieve fairness. It also doesn’t enjoy the kind of broad consensus its proponents like to pretend they have.
I am not from the US. I am not white. I am typically in the left (to what's considered left in the countries I lived in). And I really dislike all the political correctness that seeped into tech, and generally comes from the US.
All the jargon tiptoeing is extremely condescending, as if non-white people are too moronic and/or weak-minded to understand that words have different meanings in different contexts.
And, no, thinking that does not make me reactionary and/or libertarian. The very much American behavior of pointing fingers at any minor thing and scream "Racist" will not define my political leanings.
What I do know is that my Black team member is offended by master/slave terminology. Maybe their grandparents had a grandparent who was enslaved, and they don’t want to be reminded of that past every day at work. Their parents grew up in segregated schools with segregated bathrooms and water fountains. That experience is very much in living memory. It wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
That’s more than enough for me to not use that terminology anymore.
This isn’t about political correctness, it’s about basic respect and empathy for other people.
I would argue that the US has unique racial tensions and that racism is deeply embedded within its system. Maybe if you live in a homogeneous culture racism doesn’t become so much of a problem. Not the case in the US.
That’s probably why in your perspective Americans can’t stop bringing up racism, because it’s such a pervasive issue in our society. There aren’t many other countries that have experienced anywhere near as much demographic change via immigration as the US.
This is what it ultimately comes down to. Unfortunately, a large segment of our population doesn't value basic respect and empathy, and we end up with this current (ridiculous) 100+ comment thread.
My buddy goes by a nickname because he was originally named after his abusive father and he'd rather not be reminded of the guy. I have two choices: 1. I could insist on calling him by his original name using excuses like "Well, that's technically your name" and "I have the free speech right to call you by that name" and "I think changing one's name is dumb" and "Why should I lift a finger" and "You can’t force me to..." and blah blah blah, or 2. I can simply respect his wishes and call him by his preferred nickname.
Option 2 doesn't cost me anything, causes zero drama, and makes everything better. It's a no-brainer. Yet vast swaths of America seem to stubbornly want to go with option 1, on this and many similar issues, resulting in unnecessary fighting, grief, drama, protests, counter-protests, pain, suffering... all because they lack empathy.
> white people should have guilt in America.
Why should non-racist white people feel guilty over the actions of other people simply because they have the same skin colour?
I do think we need to be aware of and oppose racism, but I cannot understand this attitude. It actually seems a bit... racist, even if well intentioned.
It's shocking indeed. I'm not sure "reactionary" is a fitting description. Refusing even to extend the faintest hints of common courtesy while being fully aware of the racist and bigoted connotations of using certain terms is something that even goes beyond basic manners.
All the downvoted being dumped on messages that point out this fact is even more concerning. These are basic principles of living in a civilized society. Is that out of fashion?
Same
> And yeah, white people should have guild in America.
No one is guilty of things they didn’t do
“White guilt is a belief that white people bear a collective responsibility for the harm which has resulted from historical or current racist treatment of people belonging to other racial groups” (Wikipedia)
Here’s an analogy: if I see litter on the ground in my neighborhood, I’m not guilty of littering. But if I willfully ignore it and downplay it, rather than putting in extra effort to pick it up, my neighborhood will still have litter.
On your litter analogy: I might be taking advantage of policies that have trash pickup on my street but don’t pickup trash on the other side of the tracks for “reasons”
- an allowlist/blocklist to replace whitelist/blacklist
-primary/replica to replace master/slave
Also, how old are you? I’m not young but not old and I don’t associate racial overtones to the latter terms