21 ms·

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

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, watching people be vicariously offended without asking if context in question is offensive, and the obsession with signaling instead of meaningful action.

A12-B 6y ago
It's not that big of a deal really. Just a small name change
- vmception 6y ago
  the point is that it was identified as an area of change at all, when given the reasons for doing so it is completely vacuous and existing in the absence of other change, but being used to satisfy a checkmark of change and self-congratulate.
dsincl12 6y ago
As a white dude, I feel really ashamed for this even though I'm not involved in this at all. Sorry man, you deserve a better world.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  As an independent who has both democratic party and liberalism as my part of my makeup I have to say this overcompensation from the far left is nuts. It's some kind of white man's guilt complex. I believe everyone is created equal and we have to always be diligent about keeping that at the forefront, but the terms master/slave and their ilk (in english) were around looooong before the whole white/black slave travesty happened. The same with white/black list. Until I hear some prominent black leaders sayign the community at large has an issue with it then I don't really care what some blogger or guilt stricken white people say. It's overcompensation and cancel culture all rolled into one.
- motogpjimbo 6y ago
  Isn't this the exact sentiment that is causing the issues in the first place?
  - snakeboy 6y ago
    I would disagree. I think the "woke" stuff is a more active movement to solve all of the 1% of the issue, while ignoring the 99% that actually effects peoples' lives (how universities perpetuate classism, living wages for people doing 'un-skilled' work, revitalizing disadvantaged communities that perpetuate historical racial injustices, etc.). Displays of misplaced white guilt like this - while bizarre psychologically - don't really harm or help anything.
    - SyzygistSix 6y ago
      Seriously. Compared to incarceration, poverty, and social mobility statistics, none of this matters very much.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Why would you be ashamed because of your skin color?
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    I assume he's been taught to be and gets off on it.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  Yes, flog yourself! Repent for your sins! If you draw enough blood on your back, the plague will stop!
- vmception 6y ago
  I appreciate the empathy, I hope that my thoughts can help people direct energy in more productive ways.
- jason0597 6y ago
  "Sorry I'm white! Sorry I'm male!"
- deadbytes 6y ago
  As a white dude, I feel extremely proud because my ancestors abolished slavery. Oh wait no I don't, because feeling shame or accomplishment for something your ancestors did hundreds of years ago that you had zero control over is a completely ridiculous concept.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    As someone whose ancestors annihlated his other ancestors I'm not proud at all, nor do I feel guilt. It's a tragedy as old as human history. We can't forget those horrible things, but we can't bury them either, we are an imperfect species and we have to live with it. Burying words under a rug doesn't fix anything, only diligence and real egalitarianism will.
  - dsincl12 6y ago
    I don't understand how that little line could be so misinterpreted so wrong. I'm not ashamed of being white, I'm ashamed of asshats running around gunning for cheap SJW points while ignoring the real issues. We can do better. Master/slave, blacklist/whitelist etc has no relation to race at all so it's a completely pointless act. But instead this is taking center stage just so people can post "feelgood" LinkedIn/Twitter posts to make them feel better about themselves, or company PR blog posts like GitHub and GitLab while doing nothing to change the actual status quo.
    - morlockabove 6y ago
      What gives you the right to feel ashamed on behalf of someone else's actions, just because you're of the same race as them? Shame on you, virtue-chaser.
benrbray 6y ago
In all fairness, this sort of silly business is more representative of the "Twitter left", comprised of cogs in a perpetual rage-inducing machine, than it is of "leftists" whose main objective is to address the limitations of capitalism, at varying degrees of willingness to work within the system vs burn it down. Of course, our media is run by billionaires so they capitalize on the identity politics to divide everyone and avoid having any real debate about economic policy, which is the only thing that really matters. I would so much rather be debating about the best way to roll out UBI than whether to call something "main" or "master".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 6y ago
  This is some technocrat fiction that has failed time and time again. There are towns in the US right now which actively reject help if it's not coming in the form of "more coal jobs" (which aren't coming back regardless of how much coal mining is actually on). Economic incentives don't change people's minds, they motivate them to double-down on their biases.
  - benrbray 6y ago
    Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that such people have been duped by channels like Fox News into doubling-down on a way of life that is simply not possible anymore. What I'm saying is that if Fox and CNN (for instance) devoted the same air time to good-faith debate about the causes for, impact of, and solutions to wealth inequality and our changing socioeconomic landscape as they do reading Twitter comments live on air, we might be in a better position than we are today.
- edbob 6y ago
  I'm not a leftist at all, but I'd also love to be rolling out UBI.
- Aunche 6y ago
  Billionaires capitalize on identity politics and political division because it gets them advertising dollars. That's it. While I agree that economic policy certainly merits more discussion, an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about "the elite" isn't any more productive than an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about white people.
Freak_NL 6y ago
Aren't you worried that by applying political labels like 'left' (or equally often seen in the US context: 'liberal') for something that does not really represent that political ideology, you are at risk of further polarizing such debates? This specific instance seems like an overreaction of some in both corporate and social media culture. One poster already pointed out that this is likely more about corporate fear of getting targetted by a vocal but ultimately small 'woke' crowd (there, another label, but at least a bit more specific than just generally someone who wishes to achieve basic goals like welfare, equality, and regulation of private industry). It does have all the looks of virtue signalling without any real justification. In debates like this sometimes a small number of loud, well-meaning but naive people get much more influence than they should for fear of the other being painted the bad guy, while a significant number of people who are actually affected by the underlying issues don't get heard at all.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Who on the right is pushing this stuff?
  - benrbray 6y ago
    I believe the main point of the person you're replying to is that it's a relatively small, vocal minority of people on Twitter who care about this stuff, and the media snowballs it into a big ugly controversy for clicks. As far as I know, this is true also of the following examples of "the right" "cancelling" stuff: * Colin Kaepernick and kneelgate * calls to boycott Starbucks for celebrating an inclusive holiday season, rather than Christmas in particular * republican voters "cancelling" Mitt Romney and other republicans for being vocally anti-Trump, even though their political principles have not changed I can think of at least one more serious example that goes beyond just a vocal minority: The long, ongoing fight to teach children about LGBTQ issues in public schools. Teachers can be fired for simply revealing to their students that they have a same-sex partner. Not long ago, too, was it career-ending for a Hollywood actor to come out publicly as LGBTQ. Ellen comes to mind as an example.
    - 6y ago
ianai 6y ago
to be heard you do need to speak. Write your representatives in Congress your views on things they are or aren’t doing. Write a blog or vlog. Oftentimes simply being talking in public gains otherwise obscure or even unhelpful views traction simply by being available.
realfinec 6y ago
Lol, as another black guy, even before opening the thread I knew I'd find one of these grovelling comments from a house-type here. I, at least, completely support GitHub's actions. Btw, we're not "walking away from the Left", as is indicated in the recent election results. You might be confusing your own people for Hispanics.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  > grovelling comments from a house-type here ?!?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - edbob 6y ago
    I'm very familiar with this as I spent 10 years in prison. The term "Uncle Tom" is not used by black men in prison. They say "house n-word" (except not n-word of course). It's about the most offensive term possible. It basically means a "house slave" that was well-treated and is therefore sympathetic to or on the side of the white man. The anytonym is "field n-word", a slave that worked in the fields, which I probably heard more often as people sometimes identify as that term. E.g., if a guy is talking to his buddy who has a nice ("cadillac") job situation, he might say "I'm just a field n-word."
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      I have heard/seen the phrase before, I was just very surprised to see it thrown out in this situation.
- vmception 6y ago
  hi, for anyone looking for something to vicariously offended about, this is a racially insensitive comment to be offended by, colloquially (but not academically) called a "racist" comment. this person is referring to a dichotomy in the black American slave caste, where people that worked in the fields were considered different than people that worked inside the house. the adjectives being "house negro/n**r". It is used to invalidate the opinions of someone proclaimed as "black" that doesn't have consensus with a community that is pretending to be amorphous. There have always been black Americans privileged enough to choose causes like any other American, while being lumped into the identity politics from all factions of the country. Even Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail (1953) references this. I don't speak for anyone, and I am aware of black American people in my life that did bring up the "master/slave" terminology in computing as problematic and offputting and insensitive. The people in my life are of an older generation than me. The github issue, as this article points out, does not have a "slave" context only a master. To some that doesn't make a difference. I am speaking for myself and like I said I agree with what the person in London wrote.
otikik 6y ago
> 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.
- dagw 6y ago
  I don't understand why aren't there more real left (no quotes) organizations or parties gaining traction in the US. There are. The Democratic Socialists of America has grown a lot over the past few years. They even managed to get four member elected Congress this last election cycle. It seems as if it should have happened "naturally" one or two generations ago. I have no evidence, but I suspect McCarthyism and the following hard crackdown on leftists that followed during the cold war greatly slowed down this "natural" growth. It took a generation removed from the cold war for this growth to start up again.
  - eyko 6y ago
    DSA isn't no-quotes-left. It has gone full steam into identity politics if you ask me (I'm not American, but this is just based on what I've been seeing from them, correct me if I'm wrong). I don't mean that in a negative way and I'm not making any judgements of morality or anything, but no-quotes-left has a class conscience, today's left has an identity conscience (gender, ethnicity, etc). Both fight for equality (new left also for equity) but the ideology has shifted from a class struggle to a new kind of struggle that has replaced the nobility and bourgeoisie for the white cis male, and the proletariat for BIPOC, women, gender non conforming, etc. Edit: equality+equity.
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      The DSA is a mix. It has grown in leaps and bounds, but before it did that it was this kind of small social democratic organization with a kind of unique politics that came from Michael Harrington, and was more interested in being a bit of a left wing lobby inside the Democrats. With the rise of Bernie Sanders and a new generation of people getting into socialist and left wing politics, it became quite a bit broader and larger and vibrant. And my impression is it became of a centre of gravity for other left tendencies in the US to coalesce. There's quite a few different groupings in there these days. I don't think you can make a broad generalization like you did here.
Silhouette 6y ago
Perhaps, in the spirit of sharing useful insight within these kinds of discussions, as a black American you could educate me about something? For context, I am neither black nor American, I have little time for woke virtue-signalling and fake outrage, but I do want to be properly respectful of others whose background and sensitivities aren't necessarily like my own. With that in mind, I often find socially acceptable terminology around race confusing. For example, take the word "color". I can understand why an umbrella term such as "colored people" could be problematic. However, if that is the case, I don't understand why "people of color" should be any more socially acceptable, nor why one of the most prominent advocacy groups still uses the former term in its name. There is so much unconstructive commentary about this particular example that it's hard to figure out what the relevant history and genuine sensitivities are here. Can you enlighten me?
- vmception 6y ago
  It's just symbolic, and still part of a consensus forming continuum based on advances in communication across large landmasses. Black people in America are from many different cultures and are simply people that noticed that they had a shared experience of being excluded from institutions and even entire states. The terminology simply comes from individuals taking initiative in the moment and saying "they treat everyone that looks like us all the same and we need umbrella terms to acknowledge our shared circumstance so that its easy to refer to ourselves". Other non-black people already had terms for us and these terms were typically also used in the pejorative. Many people consider "black" to be an affliction even today. So what you have is that some black people reject those older terms, some people try to repurpose and "take back" those older terms, some people create new terms, most terms are still in use. These aren't scientific terms, but they do permeate into academia to convey a shared concept. So there isn't much to read into it except learning what the consensus is, and the history of why it is. But trying to merge it into the lexicon based on pattern recognition with other words will only confuse you.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    Thank you, that's an interesting reply. Again perhaps this is my own lack of informed perspective, but I had always imagined that grouping all "non-white" people together under a single term was part of the problem. It seems like an act that diminishes the distinct cultures all being lumped in together, as well as the obvious racism if the whole group was then treated as somehow inferior or less worthy. But from what you wrote, it seems like at least some people in the affected communities do find these kinds of umbrella terms useful, as a form of solidarity and recognition of shared problems? But then even within those communities not everyone agrees on which terms are useful for positive reasons and which have too much negative baggage or pejorative history, and that's how we get the apparent contradictions like "colored people" being socially unacceptable, but not in the context of the NAACP, and at the same time "people of color" being socially acceptable?
MrWiffles 6y ago
White guy here, just wanted to chime in and say HELL YES, you nailed it bro. There's more of an emphasis in "tech" toward appearing "woke" than ACTUALLY SOLVING THE FUCKING PROBLEM. You nailed it with "you/they don't see us as equals [...]". The most important word in the term "African Americans", to me, is, "AMERICANS". You're in this with us. You're our friends, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. We're in this TOGETHER. And this woke-ism bullshit is just that: bullshit. Changing a primary branch name from "master" to "main" isn't solving the damn problem. Execs want to do this to earn PR points and wash their hands of the issue of a lack of representation and equality in the industry as a result. It's cheaper than actually giving a shit. But the reality is that socioeconomic barriers to entry into high paying STEM roles amongst our African AMERICAN friends/colleagues is a very real problem that needs to be addressed on both a cultural and economic level. Ya'll are every damn bit as capable as the rest of us and I'm fucking tired of seeing you thrown under the bus in this industry, especially under the guise of "woke"-ism. It's time we start tearing down these PR stunts as the falsehoods that they are and insist on real, monetary, quantifiable and results-driven investments in black communities that are damn well deserved. And to my colleagues in the industry that are non-black (especially white): it's time we stand up and "get their back" for our black friends, colleagues and family members. We're in this together, and it's well past time we stand up for our fellow Americans. This bullshit charade needs to stop and WE have the power to move things forward into an era of REAL representation and fairness, and as such we have a RESPONSIBILITY to do it. Enough talk - it's time to act.
- aspnet_dev 6y ago
  In Europe the notion of someone being a African Frenchmen or a African English is absurd. You are your nationality. Unfortunately this export from America is starting to take root in Europe.
  - Wintamute 6y ago
    It's not an American import, or absurd to have an identity composed of both a nationality and ethnicity. Really, it's up to the individual - there are many 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants to the UK or Europe that value their cultural origins and ethnicities. Absolutely those people are British, but many, if not most will not wish to erase their heritage for the sake of 100% assimilation into the host culture.
estaseuropano 6y ago
I think important to distinguish between the radicals and the reasonable people. I would consider myself left but find this change ridiculous. Similar to e.g. how the American concern around blackface is pushed around the world and has madethe dutch Zwarte Piet or German equivalents 'offensive' (even as they probably relate to charcoal burners ('Köhler') [1]). You equate the few radicals that see some issue there with all 'on the left' which is presumably 50% of any population. Similar to veganism: the joke is that vegans are all very vocal about being vegan. But reality is that you simply don't notice all the ones that aren't vocal about it and silently love their lives or focus on other issues. Its just an issue of availability bias [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner 2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic
- vmception 6y ago
  No, I equate it as an accurate criticism of the left. As in, it isn’t an inaccurate criticism. It would be nice if the various camps just acknowledged their criticisms based on accuracy. Yes, a few predictably present radicals does make it an accurate criticism. It would be more difficult to predict this kind of behavior from people identifying as “the right”. They do other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the latter, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the former that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  From Wikipedia: > Traditionally, Zwarte Piet is black because he is a Moor from Spain. However, since the late twentieth century the common explanation of Zwarte Piet's blackness has been that it is due to the soot on his body acquired during his many trips down the chimneys of the homes he visits. Those portraying Zwarte Piet usually put on blackface and colourful Renaissance attire in addition to curly wigs and bright red lipstick. In recent years, the character has become the subject of controversy.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 6y ago
> signaling instead of meaningful action. Oh this is a good short summary of the era
- froh 6y ago
  yes! let me tweet this and post it on FB...
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    :) but really the web amplified the tendency to look and speak in shallow settings it's like morals on the map versus the territory
aiilns 6y ago
Lol I'm not American and people have already pointed out problems with your reasoning as regarding to the American "left". No one has pointed the most obvious flaw though: what's the alternative? So you walked away from the "left" and went where? Does the "right" even care about racism? Granted I don't know much about American politics; in Europe though, I don't really see right wing parties having an issue with racism, or sexism or even poverty. Maybe Trump & the Republicans really see black people, women, minorities as equals. Oh wait...
- vmception 6y ago
  Its actually not a statement about what I personally do, it gives context to why black Americans and other minorities would and have, at the surprising surprise to seemingly everyone. The “right” simply does other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the right, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the left that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform. And there’s just other things that Americans can be interested in like certain trade deals or certain people confirmed into government positions or something completely irrelevant. Your own snarky comment really suggests only some people have the privilege of playing the game of America. Within America, people on the left have trouble believing minorities could have any interest in that, as in the Democratic Party doesn’t factor it in at all, while their ranks are filled with posers who are willing to weaponize their understanding of race at a moment’s notice, no different than a self-proclaimed supremacist.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
"left" indeed -- I have been a pretty radical socialist since I was 16. (Well, at least on paper, I haven't been done activist work for years) ... And I don't recognize myself in this "left" that people keep talking about. I think it's hilarious to call CNN "left" or think that anybody in GitHub leadership is "left" for relabeling git branches. Plz. It's just a proposterous strange (and uniquely American) partitioning of the world. If you define "left" as anything "not far right" then, yeah, ok, of course it's going to include a bunch of liberals who are not interested in any real structural change in the political-economic system and so are obsessed instead with changing how people speak. So I just don't use the word anymore if I can. I'm not "left wing", I'm a socialist... Unfortunately "socialist" also seems to mean something weird to many Americans, too. (That anybody could with a straight face call Obama or Biden socialist just boggles my mind...)
- aspnet_dev 6y ago
  If you want to understand why Biden and Obama are called socialists, I suggest you do some reading of the Anarcho-Capitalist literature (Anatomy of the State is the most obvious) or maybe listen to someone like Peter Schiff. I don't agree with their philosophy as I believe it to be unrealistic but their criticisms and descriptions of what the state is and isn't is valid and why some call it socialist may make more sense to you. Hans Herman Hoppe (I am sure someone will quote mine him to smear him after I've mentioned him and haven't read any of this books) even called Democracy a soft form of communism.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    Biden and Obama are called socialists because Americans were trained to fear communism and socialism during the Cold War. There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist. Conservatives have just learned that they can score easy points by calling anyone left of Ronald Reagan a marxist
    - aspnet_dev 6y ago
      > There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist. Yes there is. There is a tonne of stuff that is explicitly socialist. In the UK my boss (who is from the UK) has recently said that the Biden Administration is more socialist than the previous administration. The news here has said it. It got nothing to do with the cold-war. It is to do with their policies.
threatofrain 6y ago
What about the American right is attractive to black Americans? Which GOP policies really sold the story that black progress was in the air?
- vmception 6y ago
  Its actually not a statement about what I personally do, it gives context to why black Americans and other people of color would and have, at the surprising surprise to seemingly everyone. The “right” simply does other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the right, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the left that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform. And there’s just other things that Americans can be interested in like certain trade deals or certain people confirmed into government positions or something completely irrelevant. Your comment really suggests only some people have the privilege of playing the game of America. Within America, people on the left have trouble believing minorities could have any interest in that, as in the Democratic Party doesn’t factor it in at all, while their ranks are filled with posers who are willing to weaponize their understanding of race at a moment’s notice, no different than a self-proclaimed supremacist.
major505 6y ago
And lets be honest. Changing one word that annoyed a few dozen of people because they think of slavery, well, thats a lot of change just because a shit excuse, that will not matter in the end.
- f430 6y ago
  "omg America is actually racist?" "quick somebody ban any word with master and black" "whew that was a close one"
the_resistence 6y ago
I really appreciate this post. Somehow I think the media and its funders are trying to drive the wedge between similarly thinking people as hard as they can.
zozbot234 6y ago
Meh, I just like 'main' because it's two letters shorter than 'master'. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- runarberg 6y ago
  Usually I only type `ma<tab>` so in either case, for me it is just three keystrokes.
- jldugger 6y ago
  The entire point of this is what the default branch should be called. You don't even have to type it 99 times out of 100.
bobthechef 6y ago
Absolutely. The paternalism that's shown toward black Americans by white Americans on the left is so obvious. They're treated like children. This patronizing stance toward blacks is like a continuation of the general pre-Civil War ethos of the Democrats. You "took care" of your slaves, too. They were your "property", after all. But of course, you didn't really want to help your slaves in any real way, lest they forget their place.
knodi 6y ago
What are you walking away to, the r̶e̶i̶c̶h̶ right?
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  Perhaps because it's annoying to be affiliated with people who think any and all deviation from their political norms makes you "evil". Just a thought.
guscost 6y ago
What do you think about the claim that LBJ’s great society effectively incentivized breaking up black families, with tragic consequences? Seems another good reason to “walk away from the left” if even their apparently sincere projects keep backfiring like that.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  I think the War on Drugs was far more responsible for that than LBJ.
dleslie 6y ago
As an outsider, watching Americans complain about political fatigue is fascinating, and informative. Very clearly there is a pervasive feeling that the political apparatus of America is ineffectual. But instead of seeking to become engaged, many are sucked in by media rhetoric that assigns blame to a menacing adversarial out-group. > It's not pervasive corruption that's to blame, it's the evil culture of people not like you and their corrupt representatives! We have this where I live, but thankfully we also enjoy a fair amount of mobility; it's less common to be entirely surrounded by those who vote the same as you, and most ridings have flipped between two or three parties over the coarse of most constituent's lifetimes. While the ethnic diversity of the ridings has generally increased over the same time. Americans could use more political diversity; you're choosing between neocons and neoliberals, and fighting visciously against each other to do so.
- vbtemp 6y ago
  A good distillation of what you're saying is here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
- remarkEon 6y ago
  Yeah the whole thing is really becoming a meta-commentary on the entire US political system. If it weren't so bizarre and dangerous, it would be really fascinating to watch (speaking as an American). On some level, many are subconsciously realizing the majority of both parties represent essentially the same geopolitical worldview that neither left nor right really agree with anymore (for different reasons). If this were a different country I'd predict a major political realignment on the horizon, but given how ingrained the respective neo-con/liberal ideologies are in the political infrastructure here ... I just don't see it as likely without something catastrophic happening to force the issue.
calibas 6y ago
>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 To switch things around for perspective: "There's nothing wrong with being white and you should be proud of your race." Yep, if a black person told me this it would be patronizing, and if a white person told me this I'd assume they're racist. Swap white for black in my quote, and it's what the white community in the US is effectively telling the black community, if not in such obvious terms. It's precisely because of systematic racism that we white people get to share our "sage advice" on how to combat racism, while being almost totally ignorant on the subject. It's proof of privilege and hideously condescending.
zeku 6y ago
87% of voting African Americans voted for Biden https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/...
- GordonS 6y ago
  With Trump as the alternative, that was hardly surprising - Biden could have been just about anyone and the result would likely have been the same.
  - andyxor 6y ago
    *with anti-Trump propaganda it's hardly surprising. He was slandered as 'racist' pretty much non-stop for the entire duration of his term.
- vmception 6y ago
  > black Americans and other people of color
mnsc 6y ago
> I’m a black American ... Do you think that there's a difference with using "master" for the main branch vs using "blacklist" for stuff you don't want in your system? Or are they equally non-offensive to you?
- sfink 6y ago
  Please let "blacklist" and "whitelist" die. I'm not sure whether the terms carry racial baggage or not, but I don't need to be. I have to repeat the logic of which means which in my head every time. It's as bad as "false negative" and "false positive" -- which means what, again? "allowlist", "blocklist", "denylist", whatever. They all mean something. I know that "blacklist" is used in a number of areas (blacklisted authors etc.), and I don't have much trouble understanding it there, but those uses also come with a whole set of connotations that don't necessarily apply to lists of URLs or whatever. It's a stretch too far for my brain to be able to hop over without thinking it through. (For the record, I'm also all in for "false alarm" in place of false positive, and "missed bug"/"undetected flaw" for false negative in the context of static analysis where it makes sense.)
- vmception 6y ago
  it will take more than a piecemeal approach of rewriting the English language to address prejudice it is part of an effort of acknowledging that things white are seen as good or less bad, and things black are seen as bad and worse, and this is consistent across the language this particular approach of extrapolating that towards skin color and ethnicity is just as misguided but I could have seen it coming: when I’ve used the words in context before, it becomes clear people have had race on their mind the entire conversation that they try to make a poor joke about the irony of me using those words. Seemingly for their own comfort. Not exactly what I would call privilege, in America.
analog31 6y ago
As one who leans towards the left, I can reassure you that I've never told anybody what to think, nor have I been vicariously offended, and I barely communicate anything to anybody, which renders my "signaling footprint" pretty darn small. I'm doubtful that those are fair generalizations, and skeptical of critical signaling theory. I read about the GitHub name change, then completely forgot about it until I saw this HN thread. At the time I think I asked our internal Git guru if this was going to change anything, and he said don't worry about it. My concern is that a few gaffes from here and there are combined into some unifying characteristic of my "wing," when most people simply take little or no notice of them.
- Zelphyr 6y ago
  I think you're right about that. Coupled with the fact that extremes from both "wings" are, despite being quite small, very loud and have the megaphone of the news media and social media to make them seem larger than they really are.
kizer 6y ago
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.
ngokevin 6y ago
Reminds me of the Netflix film, White Tiger. A liberal Indian-American woman comes to India, pretends to care about how the lower castes of India are treated as slaves, but in the end, is just going through the motions and leaves a servant with pocket change. In the end, not treating them as people, but as objects to funnel their morality and values.
- f430 6y ago
  Malcom X said it the best. The White leftist liberal is the biggest oppressor in the room. By declaring they speak for the oppressed they've essentially silenced them. Take a minute to reflect back on what happened.
  - ngokevin 6y ago
    I think speaking for the oppressed is better than actively oppressing people though. While there is always more that could be done, hanging out a BLM banner is better than...supporting suppression of black voter rights. Though I understand some people use signaling -in place- of action, which is neutral at best, it's better than active oppression.
    - vmception 6y ago
      In reality the current approach just alienates the people in power with the ability to do something meaningful. People that werent going to do anything meaningful, but still wont. Except now they wear black and blue versions of the American flag in a specific counter protest. While the actual person of color has to listen to your ilk proclaim rewriting the language is so progressive and for that person no matter what their life experience has been, and also wonder about how much the “silent” people resent them because they think it’s we’re going to cancel them. Hope that people can further refine how the energy and sentiment is directed. I feel like we’re close, but people are still so out of touch.
      - f430 6y ago
        the thing is the CCP has been indoctrinating your youngest from the 80s. pikachu surprise face when they start touting the propaganda they were taught in their younger years.
make3 6y ago
The actual (socialist) American left (think AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) calls this liberalism, and complains that it is more about posturing than actual change. So this is only a criticism of the left if you are very far to the right.
anm89 6y ago
Agreed. So many things about this view point are patronizing and condescending. I don't get why people aren't offended by this.

A12-B 6y ago

It's not that big of a deal really. Just a small name change

vmception 6y ago
the point is that it was identified as an area of change at all, when given the reasons for doing so it is completely vacuous and existing in the absence of other change, but being used to satisfy a checkmark of change and self-congratulate.

dsincl12 6y ago

As a white dude, I feel really ashamed for this even though I'm not involved in this at all. Sorry man, you deserve a better world.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
As an independent who has both democratic party and liberalism as my part of my makeup I have to say this overcompensation from the far left is nuts. It's some kind of white man's guilt complex. I believe everyone is created equal and we have to always be diligent about keeping that at the forefront, but the terms master/slave and their ilk (in english) were around looooong before the whole white/black slave travesty happened. The same with white/black list. Until I hear some prominent black leaders sayign the community at large has an issue with it then I don't really care what some blogger or guilt stricken white people say. It's overcompensation and cancel culture all rolled into one.
motogpjimbo 6y ago
Isn't this the exact sentiment that is causing the issues in the first place?
- snakeboy 6y ago
  I would disagree. I think the "woke" stuff is a more active movement to solve all of the 1% of the issue, while ignoring the 99% that actually effects peoples' lives (how universities perpetuate classism, living wages for people doing 'un-skilled' work, revitalizing disadvantaged communities that perpetuate historical racial injustices, etc.). Displays of misplaced white guilt like this - while bizarre psychologically - don't really harm or help anything.
  - SyzygistSix 6y ago
    Seriously. Compared to incarceration, poverty, and social mobility statistics, none of this matters very much.
emteycz 6y ago
Why would you be ashamed because of your skin color?
- morlockabove 6y ago
  I assume he's been taught to be and gets off on it.
morlockabove 6y ago
Yes, flog yourself! Repent for your sins! If you draw enough blood on your back, the plague will stop!
vmception 6y ago
I appreciate the empathy, I hope that my thoughts can help people direct energy in more productive ways.
jason0597 6y ago
"Sorry I'm white! Sorry I'm male!"
deadbytes 6y ago
As a white dude, I feel extremely proud because my ancestors abolished slavery. Oh wait no I don't, because feeling shame or accomplishment for something your ancestors did hundreds of years ago that you had zero control over is a completely ridiculous concept.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  As someone whose ancestors annihlated his other ancestors I'm not proud at all, nor do I feel guilt. It's a tragedy as old as human history. We can't forget those horrible things, but we can't bury them either, we are an imperfect species and we have to live with it. Burying words under a rug doesn't fix anything, only diligence and real egalitarianism will.
- dsincl12 6y ago
  I don't understand how that little line could be so misinterpreted so wrong. I'm not ashamed of being white, I'm ashamed of asshats running around gunning for cheap SJW points while ignoring the real issues. We can do better. Master/slave, blacklist/whitelist etc has no relation to race at all so it's a completely pointless act. But instead this is taking center stage just so people can post "feelgood" LinkedIn/Twitter posts to make them feel better about themselves, or company PR blog posts like GitHub and GitLab while doing nothing to change the actual status quo.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    What gives you the right to feel ashamed on behalf of someone else's actions, just because you're of the same race as them? Shame on you, virtue-chaser.

benrbray 6y ago

In all fairness, this sort of silly business is more representative of the "Twitter left", comprised of cogs in a perpetual rage-inducing machine, than it is of "leftists" whose main objective is to address the limitations of capitalism, at varying degrees of willingness to work within the system vs burn it down. Of course, our media is run by billionaires so they capitalize on the identity politics to divide everyone and avoid having any real debate about economic policy, which is the only thing that really matters. I would so much rather be debating about the best way to roll out UBI than whether to call something "main" or "master".

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
XorNot 6y ago
This is some technocrat fiction that has failed time and time again. There are towns in the US right now which actively reject help if it's not coming in the form of "more coal jobs" (which aren't coming back regardless of how much coal mining is actually on). Economic incentives don't change people's minds, they motivate them to double-down on their biases.
- benrbray 6y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that such people have been duped by channels like Fox News into doubling-down on a way of life that is simply not possible anymore. What I'm saying is that if Fox and CNN (for instance) devoted the same air time to good-faith debate about the causes for, impact of, and solutions to wealth inequality and our changing socioeconomic landscape as they do reading Twitter comments live on air, we might be in a better position than we are today.
edbob 6y ago
I'm not a leftist at all, but I'd also love to be rolling out UBI.
Aunche 6y ago
Billionaires capitalize on identity politics and political division because it gets them advertising dollars. That's it. While I agree that economic policy certainly merits more discussion, an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about "the elite" isn't any more productive than an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about white people.

Freak_NL 6y ago

Aren't you worried that by applying political labels like 'left' (or equally often seen in the US context: 'liberal') for something that does not really represent that political ideology, you are at risk of further polarizing such debates? This specific instance seems like an overreaction of some in both corporate and social media culture. One poster already pointed out that this is likely more about corporate fear of getting targetted by a vocal but ultimately small 'woke' crowd (there, another label, but at least a bit more specific than just generally someone who wishes to achieve basic goals like welfare, equality, and regulation of private industry). It does have all the looks of virtue signalling without any real justification. In debates like this sometimes a small number of loud, well-meaning but naive people get much more influence than they should for fear of the other being painted the bad guy, while a significant number of people who are actually affected by the underlying issues don't get heard at all.

emteycz 6y ago
Who on the right is pushing this stuff?
- benrbray 6y ago
  I believe the main point of the person you're replying to is that it's a relatively small, vocal minority of people on Twitter who care about this stuff, and the media snowballs it into a big ugly controversy for clicks. As far as I know, this is true also of the following examples of "the right" "cancelling" stuff: * Colin Kaepernick and kneelgate * calls to boycott Starbucks for celebrating an inclusive holiday season, rather than Christmas in particular * republican voters "cancelling" Mitt Romney and other republicans for being vocally anti-Trump, even though their political principles have not changed I can think of at least one more serious example that goes beyond just a vocal minority: The long, ongoing fight to teach children about LGBTQ issues in public schools. Teachers can be fired for simply revealing to their students that they have a same-sex partner. Not long ago, too, was it career-ending for a Hollywood actor to come out publicly as LGBTQ. Ellen comes to mind as an example.
  - 6y ago

ianai 6y ago

to be heard you do need to speak. Write your representatives in Congress your views on things they are or aren’t doing. Write a blog or vlog. Oftentimes simply being talking in public gains otherwise obscure or even unhelpful views traction simply by being available.

realfinec 6y ago

Lol, as another black guy, even before opening the thread I knew I'd find one of these grovelling comments from a house-type here. I, at least, completely support GitHub's actions. Btw, we're not "walking away from the Left", as is indicated in the recent election results. You might be confusing your own people for Hispanics.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
> grovelling comments from a house-type here ?!?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- edbob 6y ago
  I'm very familiar with this as I spent 10 years in prison. The term "Uncle Tom" is not used by black men in prison. They say "house n-word" (except not n-word of course). It's about the most offensive term possible. It basically means a "house slave" that was well-treated and is therefore sympathetic to or on the side of the white man. The anytonym is "field n-word", a slave that worked in the fields, which I probably heard more often as people sometimes identify as that term. E.g., if a guy is talking to his buddy who has a nice ("cadillac") job situation, he might say "I'm just a field n-word."
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I have heard/seen the phrase before, I was just very surprised to see it thrown out in this situation.
vmception 6y ago
hi, for anyone looking for something to vicariously offended about, this is a racially insensitive comment to be offended by, colloquially (but not academically) called a "racist" comment. this person is referring to a dichotomy in the black American slave caste, where people that worked in the fields were considered different than people that worked inside the house. the adjectives being "house negro/n**r". It is used to invalidate the opinions of someone proclaimed as "black" that doesn't have consensus with a community that is pretending to be amorphous. There have always been black Americans privileged enough to choose causes like any other American, while being lumped into the identity politics from all factions of the country. Even Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail (1953) references this. I don't speak for anyone, and I am aware of black American people in my life that did bring up the "master/slave" terminology in computing as problematic and offputting and insensitive. The people in my life are of an older generation than me. The github issue, as this article points out, does not have a "slave" context only a master. To some that doesn't make a difference. I am speaking for myself and like I said I agree with what the person in London wrote.

otikik 6y ago

> 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.

dagw 6y ago
I don't understand why aren't there more real left (no quotes) organizations or parties gaining traction in the US. There are. The Democratic Socialists of America has grown a lot over the past few years. They even managed to get four member elected Congress this last election cycle. It seems as if it should have happened "naturally" one or two generations ago. I have no evidence, but I suspect McCarthyism and the following hard crackdown on leftists that followed during the cold war greatly slowed down this "natural" growth. It took a generation removed from the cold war for this growth to start up again.
- eyko 6y ago
  DSA isn't no-quotes-left. It has gone full steam into identity politics if you ask me (I'm not American, but this is just based on what I've been seeing from them, correct me if I'm wrong). I don't mean that in a negative way and I'm not making any judgements of morality or anything, but no-quotes-left has a class conscience, today's left has an identity conscience (gender, ethnicity, etc). Both fight for equality (new left also for equity) but the ideology has shifted from a class struggle to a new kind of struggle that has replaced the nobility and bourgeoisie for the white cis male, and the proletariat for BIPOC, women, gender non conforming, etc. Edit: equality+equity.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    The DSA is a mix. It has grown in leaps and bounds, but before it did that it was this kind of small social democratic organization with a kind of unique politics that came from Michael Harrington, and was more interested in being a bit of a left wing lobby inside the Democrats. With the rise of Bernie Sanders and a new generation of people getting into socialist and left wing politics, it became quite a bit broader and larger and vibrant. And my impression is it became of a centre of gravity for other left tendencies in the US to coalesce. There's quite a few different groupings in there these days. I don't think you can make a broad generalization like you did here.

Silhouette 6y ago

Perhaps, in the spirit of sharing useful insight within these kinds of discussions, as a black American you could educate me about something? For context, I am neither black nor American, I have little time for woke virtue-signalling and fake outrage, but I do want to be properly respectful of others whose background and sensitivities aren't necessarily like my own. With that in mind, I often find socially acceptable terminology around race confusing. For example, take the word "color". I can understand why an umbrella term such as "colored people" could be problematic. However, if that is the case, I don't understand why "people of color" should be any more socially acceptable, nor why one of the most prominent advocacy groups still uses the former term in its name. There is so much unconstructive commentary about this particular example that it's hard to figure out what the relevant history and genuine sensitivities are here. Can you enlighten me?

vmception 6y ago
It's just symbolic, and still part of a consensus forming continuum based on advances in communication across large landmasses. Black people in America are from many different cultures and are simply people that noticed that they had a shared experience of being excluded from institutions and even entire states. The terminology simply comes from individuals taking initiative in the moment and saying "they treat everyone that looks like us all the same and we need umbrella terms to acknowledge our shared circumstance so that its easy to refer to ourselves". Other non-black people already had terms for us and these terms were typically also used in the pejorative. Many people consider "black" to be an affliction even today. So what you have is that some black people reject those older terms, some people try to repurpose and "take back" those older terms, some people create new terms, most terms are still in use. These aren't scientific terms, but they do permeate into academia to convey a shared concept. So there isn't much to read into it except learning what the consensus is, and the history of why it is. But trying to merge it into the lexicon based on pattern recognition with other words will only confuse you.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Thank you, that's an interesting reply. Again perhaps this is my own lack of informed perspective, but I had always imagined that grouping all "non-white" people together under a single term was part of the problem. It seems like an act that diminishes the distinct cultures all being lumped in together, as well as the obvious racism if the whole group was then treated as somehow inferior or less worthy. But from what you wrote, it seems like at least some people in the affected communities do find these kinds of umbrella terms useful, as a form of solidarity and recognition of shared problems? But then even within those communities not everyone agrees on which terms are useful for positive reasons and which have too much negative baggage or pejorative history, and that's how we get the apparent contradictions like "colored people" being socially unacceptable, but not in the context of the NAACP, and at the same time "people of color" being socially acceptable?

MrWiffles 6y ago

White guy here, just wanted to chime in and say HELL YES, you nailed it bro. There's more of an emphasis in "tech" toward appearing "woke" than ACTUALLY SOLVING THE FUCKING PROBLEM. You nailed it with "you/they don't see us as equals [...]". The most important word in the term "African Americans", to me, is, "AMERICANS". You're in this with us. You're our friends, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. We're in this TOGETHER. And this woke-ism bullshit is just that: bullshit. Changing a primary branch name from "master" to "main" isn't solving the damn problem. Execs want to do this to earn PR points and wash their hands of the issue of a lack of representation and equality in the industry as a result. It's cheaper than actually giving a shit. But the reality is that socioeconomic barriers to entry into high paying STEM roles amongst our African AMERICAN friends/colleagues is a very real problem that needs to be addressed on both a cultural and economic level. Ya'll are every damn bit as capable as the rest of us and I'm fucking tired of seeing you thrown under the bus in this industry, especially under the guise of "woke"-ism. It's time we start tearing down these PR stunts as the falsehoods that they are and insist on real, monetary, quantifiable and results-driven investments in black communities that are damn well deserved. And to my colleagues in the industry that are non-black (especially white): it's time we stand up and "get their back" for our black friends, colleagues and family members. We're in this together, and it's well past time we stand up for our fellow Americans. This bullshit charade needs to stop and WE have the power to move things forward into an era of REAL representation and fairness, and as such we have a RESPONSIBILITY to do it. Enough talk - it's time to act.

aspnet_dev 6y ago
In Europe the notion of someone being a African Frenchmen or a African English is absurd. You are your nationality. Unfortunately this export from America is starting to take root in Europe.
- Wintamute 6y ago
  It's not an American import, or absurd to have an identity composed of both a nationality and ethnicity. Really, it's up to the individual - there are many 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants to the UK or Europe that value their cultural origins and ethnicities. Absolutely those people are British, but many, if not most will not wish to erase their heritage for the sake of 100% assimilation into the host culture.

estaseuropano 6y ago

I think important to distinguish between the radicals and the reasonable people. I would consider myself left but find this change ridiculous. Similar to e.g. how the American concern around blackface is pushed around the world and has madethe dutch Zwarte Piet or German equivalents 'offensive' (even as they probably relate to charcoal burners ('Köhler') [1]). You equate the few radicals that see some issue there with all 'on the left' which is presumably 50% of any population. Similar to veganism: the joke is that vegans are all very vocal about being vegan. But reality is that you simply don't notice all the ones that aren't vocal about it and silently love their lives or focus on other issues. Its just an issue of availability bias [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner 2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

vmception 6y ago
No, I equate it as an accurate criticism of the left. As in, it isn’t an inaccurate criticism. It would be nice if the various camps just acknowledged their criticisms based on accuracy. Yes, a few predictably present radicals does make it an accurate criticism. It would be more difficult to predict this kind of behavior from people identifying as “the right”. They do other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the latter, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the former that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform.
dan-robertson 6y ago
From Wikipedia: > Traditionally, Zwarte Piet is black because he is a Moor from Spain. However, since the late twentieth century the common explanation of Zwarte Piet's blackness has been that it is due to the soot on his body acquired during his many trips down the chimneys of the homes he visits. Those portraying Zwarte Piet usually put on blackface and colourful Renaissance attire in addition to curly wigs and bright red lipstick. In recent years, the character has become the subject of controversy.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

agumonkey 6y ago

> signaling instead of meaningful action. Oh this is a good short summary of the era

froh 6y ago
yes! let me tweet this and post it on FB...
- agumonkey 6y ago
  :) but really the web amplified the tendency to look and speak in shallow settings it's like morals on the map versus the territory

aiilns 6y ago

Lol I'm not American and people have already pointed out problems with your reasoning as regarding to the American "left". No one has pointed the most obvious flaw though: what's the alternative? So you walked away from the "left" and went where? Does the "right" even care about racism? Granted I don't know much about American politics; in Europe though, I don't really see right wing parties having an issue with racism, or sexism or even poverty. Maybe Trump & the Republicans really see black people, women, minorities as equals. Oh wait...

vmception 6y ago
Its actually not a statement about what I personally do, it gives context to why black Americans and other minorities would and have, at the surprising surprise to seemingly everyone. The “right” simply does other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the right, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the left that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform. And there’s just other things that Americans can be interested in like certain trade deals or certain people confirmed into government positions or something completely irrelevant. Your own snarky comment really suggests only some people have the privilege of playing the game of America. Within America, people on the left have trouble believing minorities could have any interest in that, as in the Democratic Party doesn’t factor it in at all, while their ranks are filled with posers who are willing to weaponize their understanding of race at a moment’s notice, no different than a self-proclaimed supremacist.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

"left" indeed -- I have been a pretty radical socialist since I was 16. (Well, at least on paper, I haven't been done activist work for years) ... And I don't recognize myself in this "left" that people keep talking about. I think it's hilarious to call CNN "left" or think that anybody in GitHub leadership is "left" for relabeling git branches. Plz. It's just a proposterous strange (and uniquely American) partitioning of the world. If you define "left" as anything "not far right" then, yeah, ok, of course it's going to include a bunch of liberals who are not interested in any real structural change in the political-economic system and so are obsessed instead with changing how people speak. So I just don't use the word anymore if I can. I'm not "left wing", I'm a socialist... Unfortunately "socialist" also seems to mean something weird to many Americans, too. (That anybody could with a straight face call Obama or Biden socialist just boggles my mind...)

aspnet_dev 6y ago
If you want to understand why Biden and Obama are called socialists, I suggest you do some reading of the Anarcho-Capitalist literature (Anatomy of the State is the most obvious) or maybe listen to someone like Peter Schiff. I don't agree with their philosophy as I believe it to be unrealistic but their criticisms and descriptions of what the state is and isn't is valid and why some call it socialist may make more sense to you. Hans Herman Hoppe (I am sure someone will quote mine him to smear him after I've mentioned him and haven't read any of this books) even called Democracy a soft form of communism.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  Biden and Obama are called socialists because Americans were trained to fear communism and socialism during the Cold War. There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist. Conservatives have just learned that they can score easy points by calling anyone left of Ronald Reagan a marxist
  - aspnet_dev 6y ago
    > There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist. Yes there is. There is a tonne of stuff that is explicitly socialist. In the UK my boss (who is from the UK) has recently said that the Biden Administration is more socialist than the previous administration. The news here has said it. It got nothing to do with the cold-war. It is to do with their policies.

threatofrain 6y ago

What about the American right is attractive to black Americans? Which GOP policies really sold the story that black progress was in the air?

vmception 6y ago
Its actually not a statement about what I personally do, it gives context to why black Americans and other people of color would and have, at the surprising surprise to seemingly everyone. The “right” simply does other things and a core part of that is rejecting virtue signaling even if that results in apathy that perpetuates adversity. People are willing to choose the right, in absence of other choices, partially because it more honestly matches the last 250 years of apathy by all administrations. Where its clear there is a kind of vapid reckoning occurring in the left that simply assumes their minority constituents are all struggling victims that cant possibly be interested in any nuanced platform. And there’s just other things that Americans can be interested in like certain trade deals or certain people confirmed into government positions or something completely irrelevant. Your comment really suggests only some people have the privilege of playing the game of America. Within America, people on the left have trouble believing minorities could have any interest in that, as in the Democratic Party doesn’t factor it in at all, while their ranks are filled with posers who are willing to weaponize their understanding of race at a moment’s notice, no different than a self-proclaimed supremacist.

major505 6y ago

And lets be honest. Changing one word that annoyed a few dozen of people because they think of slavery, well, thats a lot of change just because a shit excuse, that will not matter in the end.

f430 6y ago
"omg America is actually racist?" "quick somebody ban any word with master and black" "whew that was a close one"

the_resistence 6y ago

I really appreciate this post. Somehow I think the media and its funders are trying to drive the wedge between similarly thinking people as hard as they can.

zozbot234 6y ago

Meh, I just like 'main' because it's two letters shorter than 'master'. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

runarberg 6y ago
Usually I only type `ma<tab>` so in either case, for me it is just three keystrokes.
jldugger 6y ago
The entire point of this is what the default branch should be called. You don't even have to type it 99 times out of 100.

bobthechef 6y ago

Absolutely. The paternalism that's shown toward black Americans by white Americans on the left is so obvious. They're treated like children. This patronizing stance toward blacks is like a continuation of the general pre-Civil War ethos of the Democrats. You "took care" of your slaves, too. They were your "property", after all. But of course, you didn't really want to help your slaves in any real way, lest they forget their place.

knodi 6y ago

What are you walking away to, the r̶e̶i̶c̶h̶ right?

itsoktocry 6y ago
Perhaps because it's annoying to be affiliated with people who think any and all deviation from their political norms makes you "evil". Just a thought.

guscost 6y ago

What do you think about the claim that LBJ’s great society effectively incentivized breaking up black families, with tragic consequences? Seems another good reason to “walk away from the left” if even their apparently sincere projects keep backfiring like that.

SyzygistSix 6y ago
I think the War on Drugs was far more responsible for that than LBJ.

dleslie 6y ago

As an outsider, watching Americans complain about political fatigue is fascinating, and informative. Very clearly there is a pervasive feeling that the political apparatus of America is ineffectual. But instead of seeking to become engaged, many are sucked in by media rhetoric that assigns blame to a menacing adversarial out-group. > It's not pervasive corruption that's to blame, it's the evil culture of people not like you and their corrupt representatives! We have this where I live, but thankfully we also enjoy a fair amount of mobility; it's less common to be entirely surrounded by those who vote the same as you, and most ridings have flipped between two or three parties over the coarse of most constituent's lifetimes. While the ethnic diversity of the ridings has generally increased over the same time. Americans could use more political diversity; you're choosing between neocons and neoliberals, and fighting visciously against each other to do so.

vbtemp 6y ago
A good distillation of what you're saying is here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
remarkEon 6y ago
Yeah the whole thing is really becoming a meta-commentary on the entire US political system. If it weren't so bizarre and dangerous, it would be really fascinating to watch (speaking as an American). On some level, many are subconsciously realizing the majority of both parties represent essentially the same geopolitical worldview that neither left nor right really agree with anymore (for different reasons). If this were a different country I'd predict a major political realignment on the horizon, but given how ingrained the respective neo-con/liberal ideologies are in the political infrastructure here ... I just don't see it as likely without something catastrophic happening to force the issue.

calibas 6y ago

>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 To switch things around for perspective: "There's nothing wrong with being white and you should be proud of your race." Yep, if a black person told me this it would be patronizing, and if a white person told me this I'd assume they're racist. Swap white for black in my quote, and it's what the white community in the US is effectively telling the black community, if not in such obvious terms. It's precisely because of systematic racism that we white people get to share our "sage advice" on how to combat racism, while being almost totally ignorant on the subject. It's proof of privilege and hideously condescending.

zeku 6y ago

87% of voting African Americans voted for Biden https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/...

GordonS 6y ago
With Trump as the alternative, that was hardly surprising - Biden could have been just about anyone and the result would likely have been the same.
- andyxor 6y ago
  *with anti-Trump propaganda it's hardly surprising. He was slandered as 'racist' pretty much non-stop for the entire duration of his term.
vmception 6y ago
> black Americans and other people of color

mnsc 6y ago

> I’m a black American ... Do you think that there's a difference with using "master" for the main branch vs using "blacklist" for stuff you don't want in your system? Or are they equally non-offensive to you?

sfink 6y ago
Please let "blacklist" and "whitelist" die. I'm not sure whether the terms carry racial baggage or not, but I don't need to be. I have to repeat the logic of which means which in my head every time. It's as bad as "false negative" and "false positive" -- which means what, again? "allowlist", "blocklist", "denylist", whatever. They all mean something. I know that "blacklist" is used in a number of areas (blacklisted authors etc.), and I don't have much trouble understanding it there, but those uses also come with a whole set of connotations that don't necessarily apply to lists of URLs or whatever. It's a stretch too far for my brain to be able to hop over without thinking it through. (For the record, I'm also all in for "false alarm" in place of false positive, and "missed bug"/"undetected flaw" for false negative in the context of static analysis where it makes sense.)
vmception 6y ago
it will take more than a piecemeal approach of rewriting the English language to address prejudice it is part of an effort of acknowledging that things white are seen as good or less bad, and things black are seen as bad and worse, and this is consistent across the language this particular approach of extrapolating that towards skin color and ethnicity is just as misguided but I could have seen it coming: when I’ve used the words in context before, it becomes clear people have had race on their mind the entire conversation that they try to make a poor joke about the irony of me using those words. Seemingly for their own comfort. Not exactly what I would call privilege, in America.

analog31 6y ago

As one who leans towards the left, I can reassure you that I've never told anybody what to think, nor have I been vicariously offended, and I barely communicate anything to anybody, which renders my "signaling footprint" pretty darn small. I'm doubtful that those are fair generalizations, and skeptical of critical signaling theory. I read about the GitHub name change, then completely forgot about it until I saw this HN thread. At the time I think I asked our internal Git guru if this was going to change anything, and he said don't worry about it. My concern is that a few gaffes from here and there are combined into some unifying characteristic of my "wing," when most people simply take little or no notice of them.

Zelphyr 6y ago
I think you're right about that. Coupled with the fact that extremes from both "wings" are, despite being quite small, very loud and have the megaphone of the news media and social media to make them seem larger than they really are.

kizer 6y ago

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.

ngokevin 6y ago

Reminds me of the Netflix film, White Tiger. A liberal Indian-American woman comes to India, pretends to care about how the lower castes of India are treated as slaves, but in the end, is just going through the motions and leaves a servant with pocket change. In the end, not treating them as people, but as objects to funnel their morality and values.

f430 6y ago
Malcom X said it the best. The White leftist liberal is the biggest oppressor in the room. By declaring they speak for the oppressed they've essentially silenced them. Take a minute to reflect back on what happened.
- ngokevin 6y ago
  I think speaking for the oppressed is better than actively oppressing people though. While there is always more that could be done, hanging out a BLM banner is better than...supporting suppression of black voter rights. Though I understand some people use signaling -in place- of action, which is neutral at best, it's better than active oppression.
  - vmception 6y ago
    In reality the current approach just alienates the people in power with the ability to do something meaningful. People that werent going to do anything meaningful, but still wont. Except now they wear black and blue versions of the American flag in a specific counter protest. While the actual person of color has to listen to your ilk proclaim rewriting the language is so progressive and for that person no matter what their life experience has been, and also wonder about how much the “silent” people resent them because they think it’s we’re going to cancel them. Hope that people can further refine how the energy and sentiment is directed. I feel like we’re close, but people are still so out of touch.
    - f430 6y ago
      the thing is the CCP has been indoctrinating your youngest from the 80s. pikachu surprise face when they start touting the propaganda they were taught in their younger years.

make3 6y ago

The actual (socialist) American left (think AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) calls this liberalism, and complains that it is more about posturing than actual change. So this is only a criticism of the left if you are very far to the right.

anm89 6y ago

Agreed. So many things about this view point are patronizing and condescending. I don't get why people aren't offended by this.