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As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If t

As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not actually changing anything that matters in the lives of black people.

toiletfuneral 6y ago
this is a good point. There's a lot of attempts at fixing issues through optics and performative acts to show understanding but these gestures can be sort of awkward or totally unnecessary while potentially hypocritical if it isn't coupled with material changes.
bopbeepboop 6y ago
They’re actually alienating the choir, with actions like that. I’m a white person who has performed in a professional production of The Black Nativity. I was literally part of the choir celebrating black traditions in the US. I now work in software and think less of any racialized group using historic struggles as a tool of power, control, and oppression in the here and now. Historic wrongs are not an excuse for present wrongs. Edit: pronouns are hard.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  I guess by "you" you meant "they", i.e. those parent are talking about? I was mightily confused and had to read your post three times to get an idea of what you meant.
  - bopbeepboop 6y ago
    Errr.. yes. Poorly phrased.
wernercd 6y ago
I'd extend these virtue signaling "moments" to stuff like changing the names of sports teams and bases and all of the attempts to scrub "offensive" things from our lexicon. It's not just limited to "black" but also American Indians, gay people, trans, etc. These all strike me as Priviledged people being offended for others and trying to scream "LOOK AT ME I'M FIXING THINGS!!!" with stuff that matters to no one... and in the end, they widen the divide and make everything 100x worse with all the policies to "fix" racism/sexism/all'the'other'isms but making everything about race/sex/etc. So divisive and counter productive uses of time that solve nothing.
- TylerE 6y ago
  The sports team issue is very different. That's a very public name widely used in commerce. It's not like there are millions of people walking around in "master branch" t-shirts with a caricature of an overseer on it.
  - rfoo 6y ago
    Yeah, but there are millions of people typing "master" branch on their keyboards, daily. Is this that different than the sports team issue? I'm sure you can find "important" differences if you try playing Leeuwenhoek, but why?
    - shakow 6y ago
      But master can mean many different things other than “a white man owning black slaves in 19^th century US” – and was not created with this name in mind; whereas the sport team name was unambiguously chosen and featured a caricature of the very thing they chose their name after on their logo.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        It's a 'caricature' in that choosing societies renown for being valiant warriors erases much complexity (how much nuance and complexity were you expecting from a sports mascot?). Anyway, if this were a sincere movement, it would similarly object to equivalent depictions of the Irish, Vikings, Romans, Spartans, Trojans, etc.
andrepd 6y ago
>I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. >If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest. > Also not actually changing anything that matters in the lives of black people. I couldn't have put this better myself. There are two issues - What people want is justice, including economic justice, and progress. They want to stop being discriminated by gerrymandering politicians and trigger-happy cops. They want an economy that serves everyone and not just those on the very top, and that does not disproportionally discriminate those on the bottom and especially minority communities with a history of disadvantage. In this sense, changing master to main is nothing but a feel-good measure for privileged white people to feel good about themselves without actually having to put in any effort into tackling hard problems like improving democracy or improving the economic system. - Besides this, it's actually a stupid move in a political, pragmatic sense. Like you're saying, it alienates precisely those you need to bring to your side ("it's pc gone mad!") and it's only going to be well received by those already pre-disposed to agree with you. It's actually my main criticism of the Left nowadays: we are shit at politics! You have to be pragmatic and somewhat calculating to actually get shit done. Many activists on the left today rather childishly think that simply being right is enough, as if you didn't have to be smart, convincing, use rhetoric, etc.
- wussboy 6y ago
  There was a study done that asked people on the left and right to try to imagine what the views and feeling of the other side were. People on the right were able to do a reasonable job of identifying the positions of the left. People on the left were almost completely unable to identify the goals and values of those on the right. I think that’s a big part of the problem. The left doesn’t understand what the right wants and until they do, they will not be successful in engaging the other side.
  - agapon 6y ago
    There was a study done that asked people on the right and left to try to imagine what the views and feeling of the other side were. People on the left were able to do a reasonable job of identifying the positions of the right. People on the right were almost completely unable to identify the goals and values of those on the left. I think that’s a big part of the problem. The right doesn’t understand what the left wants and until they do, they will not be successful in engaging the other side.
mehdix 6y ago
Totally agree. Had they made a real change that actually mattered, all this time spent on discussing this rename, could have been put into better use. They created buzz, changed nothing.
martamorena943 6y ago
Yes, this is a good summary of what these changes do. They allow white people to pat themselves on the back, without actually doing anything material to help break down racism.
- raffraffraff 6y ago
  I think it also burns a certain amount of political capital and good will. People only have so much "give a fuck" to spare, and if you force them to use it in meaningless ways, it's a waste.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    Absolutely, this is another thing I feel strongly about. People have limited energy, attention, resources. Every news segment that opens with "pc gone mad! radical leftists want to ban the word "blacklist"!" is a news segment that doesn't open with "wages have been stagnant for the past 50 years despite gains in productivity" "prices of tvs and smartphones falling, prices of housing and healthcare skyrocketing" "statistical studies show voter preferences have near-zero correlation with effected legislation, while preferences of the wealthier 0.5% are very strongly correlated" "hey have you noticed that the EU is hilariously undemocratic" etc etc.
    - kybernetikos 6y ago
      If your belief is that in the absence of minor controversy, we'd have better media, I think you're optimistic. We'll always have controversy and I really doubt that reducing it would improve the level of discourse one iota. Media that prioritises controversy will do whatever they can to find or foment it rather than discuss the topics you listed.
  - vinceguidry 6y ago
    Generating controversy in support of your cause is generally thought of as building political capital, not spending it. You want to focus energy on what people on your side will agree with, and, crucially, can have a personal impact towards. You can see this dynamic in Republican posturing in the Biden era. Biden is a much harder topic for Republicans to attack. His Covid relief bill has broad bipartisan support and he's an old white guy just like Republicans like to see in office. So instead of wasting time and effort on trying to attack Biden or Covid relief, they spent the last few weeks attacking cancel culture and Dr. Seuss. This move is the opposite, it lets those interested in social justice and equality participate in a political action. Any time you can energize your base around something, that's a great boon to your side. More generally speaking, political battles are fought by people who care, not by people who don't. Actions taken that cause the uncaring to care even less are fine so long as they can get some people to care more. For no better an illustration of this look to PETA. The only reason we still know who they are is because they've taken this as a holy dictate. We still know who they are because they're fantastically successful at creating absolute zealots.
crb002 6y ago
The worst I have seen is the media's failure to cover that Google - and probably Microsoft too - blacklisted historic black universities for over a decade. This a juke, a pump fake - not something substantial.
tunesmith 6y ago
Honest question, my initial response is that it only trivializes the movement if "see, we changed something" is used as an excuse to stop there. But if it isn't... what's the harm? Most of this family of points seems to equate 1) being in favor of changing master to main; and 2) being in favor of stopping there.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Well, what else has been accomplished? What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people? Sure, some cities have passed legislation to defund their police, and consequently murder rates are sky-rocketing (and probably not so much in wealthy white neighborhoods of those same cities nor in other more conservative jurisdictions). There are some colorblind reforms that something like 90% of Americans supported in one form or another; hardly anything controversial, but this is the most substantial thing that I can think of that can be credited as a consequence of the movement, but it's far too soon to figure out whether that will have an impact on any disparities. What am I missing? I'm guessing there are some negative effects that no one is bothering to measure, like the extent to which these vapid measures nudge people to the right or make them unsympathetic to the movement.
  - ben509 6y ago
    > What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people? Mostly nothing. Corporations can largely only avoid harming various groups, and engaging in fair business practices. They're not set up, by their incentive structure, to do work that reforms society at large. Even non-profits need to focus on a specific mission, and they're usually most successful by putting people in touch with each other. Because, especially if you look at it through the lens of "material" help, the further an action is from the control of the individual being helped, the amount of good that can be done per unit effort drops off dramatically. We normally view individualism as a normative claim, that "the rugged individual" ought to help himself. But you can cast it as an observation: most help in your life is only effective (again, in terms of return for the effort involved) if it comes from you personally or someone quite close to you.
- 6y ago
boardwaalk 6y ago
This seems pretty close to just saying, “If we can’t change the world, let us change nothing at all.” Sure, it’s trivial. It doesn’t, in any significant way, actually do anything. But I find a lot of time when reviewing code — if there are code badly formatted or variables misspelled, I have a hard time looking at the actually problems in the code until those superficial things are fixed.
- patorjk 6y ago
  But changing master to main doesn't fix anything, nor did the author find it a problem to begin with. I think the point is to focus on real change and not fake change, because the former is what's important and the latter is a distraction.
- root_axis 6y ago
  > This seems pretty close to just saying, “If we can’t change the world, let us change nothing at all.” I don't see it that way. In my view, this change is worse than "nothing at all" because it doesn't represent any substantive change, but it does create fodder for bad faith actors to portray the movement for social justice as trivial.
  - zeroimpl 6y ago
    On the other hand, now that the name change is done, if there are more protests then nobody will waste time talking about whether Github should change the branch name. This time, people were talking about it even before Github did anything, so it was going to be a distraction regardless. Github doing this ought to be considered just closing the book on this discussion IMO.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Sure. The change itself means nothing to me, I don't think "master" or "main" makes any difference, it's the use of github's corporate megaphone to project this triviality onto the wider discussion about social justice that I take issue with.
- 6y ago
akerro 6y ago
>I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. What do you mean? Name change of a default branch clearly fixes issues of racism in the software industry. Racism in IT = gone
- josteink 6y ago
  Can confirm. I’ve detected no racism on GitHub since master was renamed main. Clearly the problem must be solved now.
chris_wot 6y ago
I am genuinely curious: the LibreOffice team changed the file blacklist to excludelist. Do you believe this was just tokenism? I personally thought it was a great thing. But I am interested in hearing your perspective.
- pwm 6y ago
  Imho meaningful change: (blacklist, whitelist) -> (excludelist/denylist, allowlist) Imho meaningless lip service: master branch -> main branch Also imho the most insulting towards PoC and everyone else for that matter is to patronisingly assume people can't comprehend context, as OP's article points it out.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    I believe that usage of 'master' in git was copied from bitkeeper which did reference the master/slave relationship. Whereas blacklist in its original forms was used outside of a racial context. I think it'll be pretty hard to try to break the association between black (the color) and night, hiddenness, unknown, sin, fear, etc. All of which are pretty negative, but not originally racial. I find it difficult to distinguish one of these changes from the other in terms of usefulness. I also don't hold much truck with the 'insulting' and 'patronising' thing. It's perfectly possible for a white person to prefer to remove inappropriate and confusing terminology that trivialised historical injustices and/or glorified things they disagree with regardless of whether or not non-white people are offended by such usage. There seems to be an underlying view that a white person could only want to change such usage for inauthentic reasons. If we want to find things patronising, I find that patronising. Just because you're white doesn't mean you can't hold an authentic position of your own on these topics.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Cogito 6y ago
      > I believe that usage of 'master' in git was copied from bitkeeper which did reference the master/slave relationship. The (likely) basis for this belief, the GNOME mailing list post[0] that reignited this discussion in 2019, was retracted the next year[1]. I wrote a summary of the history[2] for Git Rev News, the git developers newsletter. In short, the usage didn't come from BitKeeper, and was intended to mean 'master copy'. After the article was published, Aaron Kushner from BitKeeper reached out and gave me some more history on the usage of 'slave repository' in that one particular spot in BitKeeper[3]: it was a presentation for a client that was already using master/slave terminology and so the same terms were used in the presentation. 0: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/... 1: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June/msg00023.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June... 2: https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ 3: https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505 https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505
heresie-dabord 6y ago
The major injustices and crimes of history were profitable because a targeted group was dehumanised for the gain of others. The economic victimisation of black people in the US continues to be profitable. > it trivializes the movement As a developer, I am comfortable with the change in terminology. As a human... My phenotypes are different from yours and OP's, but I am certain that if we do not bring the critique to bear against systemic enslavement of people (regardless of "targeted" phenotypes), we have all missed the point and really changed nothing. Who is blacker or whiter or truer to the tribe... these are serviceable distractions. Slavery is abhorrent to any enlightened human. But slavery existed and continues to exist because those who profit like it that way.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  But what does this have to do with using the concept of master / slave as an apt technical analogy? How does changing technical terminology help close racial gaps in opportunity or change outdated attitudes on race? It seems to me (a white guy) that this accomplishes nothing compared to other uses of the time, energy, and $ that this wastes. If I were at the head of the org I would take the time & $ that would be wasted on this effort and invest it into underserved black schools. (of which there are many in the US)
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    > an apt technical analogy It's really not an apt technical analogy. The most significant aspects of the master/slave relationship (ownership) are not present in the technical version.
    - Hammershaft 6y ago
      I think thats true for git, (altho the master branch could also refer to a master record), but there are a lot of uses of master/slave terminology in computer tech that are more apt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%2Fslave_%28technology%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%2Fslave_%28technology%2...
conductr 6y ago
I tend to agree with triviality. But I’m white and can’t vocalize that opinion IRL. However I do feel like people of my pigment also do these things as risk mitigation. Eg. Most of the world was caught off guard by the Dr Seuss thing. It seems quite obvious to me the family proactively took the books out of print because the fallout from being targeted by SJW or whoever would be huge. People are out there looking for things to be offended by, brands to attack, etc and if you’re a big company you don’t want to be caught in those crosshairs. That said, I do recall getting “pat us on the back” vibes from GitHub but just wanted to throw this alternate justification out into the discussion.
- munk-a 6y ago
  > the Dr Seuss thing Can I just briefly highlight that this wasn't "a thing" per se? This was a company privately deciding to pull some poorly selling publications from active publishing and adding a positive PR spin by calling out some questionable decisions in the art. This was made into "an issue" by some pretty rabid media outlets rebranding it as government censorship while the decision was entirely privately made. That's a pretty terrible mis-categorization. These sorts of controversies, from both the right and the left, sell news papers and that's the reason why media latches onto them so aggressively.
  - conductr 6y ago
    > This was a company privately deciding That was my point. Risk mitigation IMO
  - Jiro 6y ago
    If you recall, ebay now refuses to let people sell the books. This can't be justified by poor sales.
    - vmception 6y ago
      They jumped on it. Ebay and Amazon jumped on the misinterpretation and that is squarely their mistake. The Dr Seuss estate wasn't afraid of SJW's randomly cancelling them. And neither was Ebay or Amazon, which were instead signalling support for a society retcon that nobody - not even Dr Seuss' estate - asked for. Those latter companies are staffed by people experiencing the same cognitive dissonance in this comment thread.
908B64B197 6y ago
A (black) engineer colleague of mine told me about his team's effort to change master to main. The whole initiative was started by a rainbow colored hair (white) PM and since it was what they believed to be a highly visible and easy fix, grew to a team of 5. All non-technical PMs of course. They ended up producing a "manifesto of inclusive software" where they listed every word they considered offensive and what it should be replaced with and made a very public announcement regarding the change. The only response to their email was my (black) colleague asking if the branch renaming could be postponed to after a release because he didn't know what it could break in the build and release automation in case "master" is hard-coded somewhere. This apparently started a lengthy thread between him and the 5 PMs where they explained to him that the reason he wasn't supportive of the change was because of the "systemic and cultural racism" he apparently internalized.
- arp242 6y ago
  > This apparently started a lengthy thread between him and the 5 PMs where they explained to him that the reason he wasn't supportive of the change was because of the "systemic and cultural racism" he apparently internalized. If you feel that the master branch is a symptom of systemic and cultural racism then sure, feel free to make your case. I am interested in what you have to say and will do my best to consider what you have to say as best as I can. But once people start making these kind of arguments it's clear to me I'm dealing with someone in simplex transmit-only mode and not receiving anything I have to say. I really hate these kind of arguments. It's just gaslighting and handwaving away of whatever people are saying. "Your argument is invalid because you are subconsciously racist". Right, what makes you such an expert on my subconscious, hm? This is where I lose interest in talking to people. I'm about as liberal as they come, but in the last few years I've mostly lost interest in social justice cause not because I think the cause is bad, because there are too many people involved that are just thoroughly unpleasant to deal with. It's high time the community ejects some of its more toxic elements, which will benefit everyone, but thus far they're mostly protected, defended, and even celebrated because "they're on our team". But that's not how it works. Assholes are assholes, no matter which team they're on.
- Jiro 6y ago
  What happened then? Maybe in response, he said "no, I didn't internalize any racism, and here's a list of reasons why that logically isn't racist at all", and they said "Oh, never mind then". Or maybe not. If accusing people of internalizing systemic racism didn't work, nobody would do it. We have a system where accusing a person of racism is an instant win and cannot be argued with, and as long as it is an instant win, it's going to be used, even against actual black people.
alienthrowaway 6y ago
> If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. As another black SWE - I have to ask which hearts are we trying to open? Some are far too gone and it would be a waste of time to try to convince them to let go of their bigotry. The very same will feign engagement and argue in bad faith while being energy vampires. Why should I supplicate racists before I have my dignity as a human? Fuck "hearts and minds" - I have no way of definitively knowing those - I'll take changed behavior instead, that's all I truly care about. If I ever have kids, I can't have them live like this. > we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message I agree, but you need to consciously consider who these people are - if it's everyone, then the battle is already lost.
- root_axis 6y ago
  >I have to ask which hearts are we trying to open? Some are far too gone and it would be a waste of time to try to convince them to let go of their bigotry Any that can be opened. The ones that are "too far gone" are moot by definition, so we should keep in mind those who might see things differently if we communicate in a way that reaches them rather than puts up roadblocks. > The very same will feign engagement and argue in bad faith while being energy vampires Yes, there are many of these people, but my argument is that actions like this empower bad faith actors. > Why should I supplicate racists before I have my dignity as a human? We fundamentally disagree that use of the word "master" in a technical context is racist or a denial of human dignity. Using the word "main" instead of "master" doesn't improve economic, social, or political outcomes for black people, it doesn't do anything except create fodder for the bad faith actors. > Fuck "hearts and minds" I think this approach hurts the cause. I don't see how our children grow up in a better world if we abandon all hope of reasoning with our fellow citizens. However, as my comment stated, my advice only make sense if the goal is to change hearts and minds, if you don't care about that then my reasoning does not apply. > but you need to consciously consider who these people are As you already pointed out, we can't know who they are, thus I think it is prudent to craft broad messaging in a manner that is suitable for those who can be convinced, not those who are already convinced, or those who cannot ever be convinced. I also want to highlight that my comment includes the caveat "where appropriate", that is to say, we should be strident in the face of discrimination and bigotry, but I don't agree that the status quo for git branch names are an example of such problems.
nopeNopeNooope 6y ago
This of it more like this: It's a micro-aggression targeting the people who have never, ever considered their words in a larger context before. It's totally useless, 100% agreed. It's really fucking irritating to those people, as intend, so they come forward and self identify, so they can be removed.
charlescearl 6y ago
As a Black data scientist I will say that words have power. That naming things has power. That acknowledging the depth of white supremacy, its depravity, and need to utterly and completely remove it and all of its vestiges is the most important work that can be undertaken. There used to be a Confederate statue in the town square where I live. Many Black people worked over decades to point out what the statue symbolized, how the Klan had revised history in building that statue. Some white people wanted it gone. Finally a lot of white people wanted it gone. Then these same people began calling for reparations. A local college instituted reparations. There are calls to engage with land back movements. I’ve lived through many backlash cycles. Locally we’re still dealing with egregious health disparities that are costing Black lives daily. There is gentrification. The city’s just lived through a night in which white supremacy took the lives of several Asian women. But something has changed. Words matter. We have to keep chipping away at this monster.
- refenestrator 6y ago
  In tech, though, asians often outnumber whites at US FAANG companies. Foreigners are vastly overrepresented, jews are overrepresented, blacks are underrepresented, spanish are underrepresented. In American politics/history I totally hear you. But maybe tech is a slightly different animal? 'White supremacy' is a tough sell when <40% are domestic-born christian white. (none of the above comment is intended as a value statement on various ethnicities doing well/poorly, just an observation of how well they're doing).
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    You'd really have to look at the makeup of venture capitalists since they're the ones ultimately "in charge" of our industry. > spanish are underrepresented. I think you mean Hispanics and probably Latinos. Spanish are from Europe.
nxpnsv 6y ago
Also, moral licensing is a thing. “We already did our part” thinking. But they invented a new problem nobody has instead of solving an existing one...
nuc 6y ago
I think the main goal for this kind of symbolic actions is to raise awareness. Only the fact that we are now here discussing about the problem, is a big success, imho. Should they also do, not only symbolic but also considerable actions? The hell they should. But that doesn’t make the first point moot.
corobo 6y ago
The whole "this is pointless", "that is stupid" movement has definitely thrown up a "fuck it then" anti-signal in my mind. If most things we can do is pointless, fuck it, everything we do is probably pointless. I'm actively fighting against my own mindset to keep looking for things I can do that will make an effect. Most probably won't. I get it's just virtue signalling or whatever phrase of the week we're calling it but it's also inertia. Yes this one is pointless, but maybe the next step isn't. Anyone that's ever been told what they're doing is useless will never know. Shamefully I didn't give any consideration to anyone but myself, keeping my existing mindset everyone on the internet was a white guy like me with all the privileges I have. GitHub changing master to main might have been a joke to you, fair enough, but it opened my eyes. I dunno I'm probably just whitesplaining, sorry.
- path411 6y ago
  I worry that by picking context that have zero or close to zero racist connotations like the master branch, now you are adding racism into the world by adding racist connotations to the master branch.

toiletfuneral 6y ago

this is a good point. There's a lot of attempts at fixing issues through optics and performative acts to show understanding but these gestures can be sort of awkward or totally unnecessary while potentially hypocritical if it isn't coupled with material changes.

bopbeepboop 6y ago

They’re actually alienating the choir, with actions like that. I’m a white person who has performed in a professional production of The Black Nativity. I was literally part of the choir celebrating black traditions in the US. I now work in software and think less of any racialized group using historic struggles as a tool of power, control, and oppression in the here and now. Historic wrongs are not an excuse for present wrongs. Edit: pronouns are hard.

skinkestek 6y ago
I guess by "you" you meant "they", i.e. those parent are talking about? I was mightily confused and had to read your post three times to get an idea of what you meant.
- bopbeepboop 6y ago
  Errr.. yes. Poorly phrased.

wernercd 6y ago

I'd extend these virtue signaling "moments" to stuff like changing the names of sports teams and bases and all of the attempts to scrub "offensive" things from our lexicon. It's not just limited to "black" but also American Indians, gay people, trans, etc. These all strike me as Priviledged people being offended for others and trying to scream "LOOK AT ME I'M FIXING THINGS!!!" with stuff that matters to no one... and in the end, they widen the divide and make everything 100x worse with all the policies to "fix" racism/sexism/all'the'other'isms but making everything about race/sex/etc. So divisive and counter productive uses of time that solve nothing.

TylerE 6y ago
The sports team issue is very different. That's a very public name widely used in commerce. It's not like there are millions of people walking around in "master branch" t-shirts with a caricature of an overseer on it.
- rfoo 6y ago
  Yeah, but there are millions of people typing "master" branch on their keyboards, daily. Is this that different than the sports team issue? I'm sure you can find "important" differences if you try playing Leeuwenhoek, but why?
  - shakow 6y ago
    But master can mean many different things other than “a white man owning black slaves in 19^th century US” – and was not created with this name in mind; whereas the sport team name was unambiguously chosen and featured a caricature of the very thing they chose their name after on their logo.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      It's a 'caricature' in that choosing societies renown for being valiant warriors erases much complexity (how much nuance and complexity were you expecting from a sports mascot?). Anyway, if this were a sincere movement, it would similarly object to equivalent depictions of the Irish, Vikings, Romans, Spartans, Trojans, etc.

andrepd 6y ago

>I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. >If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest. > Also not actually changing anything that matters in the lives of black people. I couldn't have put this better myself. There are two issues - What people want is justice, including economic justice, and progress. They want to stop being discriminated by gerrymandering politicians and trigger-happy cops. They want an economy that serves everyone and not just those on the very top, and that does not disproportionally discriminate those on the bottom and especially minority communities with a history of disadvantage. In this sense, changing master to main is nothing but a feel-good measure for privileged white people to feel good about themselves without actually having to put in any effort into tackling hard problems like improving democracy or improving the economic system. - Besides this, it's actually a stupid move in a political, pragmatic sense. Like you're saying, it alienates precisely those you need to bring to your side ("it's pc gone mad!") and it's only going to be well received by those already pre-disposed to agree with you. It's actually my main criticism of the Left nowadays: we are shit at politics! You have to be pragmatic and somewhat calculating to actually get shit done. Many activists on the left today rather childishly think that simply being right is enough, as if you didn't have to be smart, convincing, use rhetoric, etc.

wussboy 6y ago
There was a study done that asked people on the left and right to try to imagine what the views and feeling of the other side were. People on the right were able to do a reasonable job of identifying the positions of the left. People on the left were almost completely unable to identify the goals and values of those on the right. I think that’s a big part of the problem. The left doesn’t understand what the right wants and until they do, they will not be successful in engaging the other side.
- agapon 6y ago
  There was a study done that asked people on the right and left to try to imagine what the views and feeling of the other side were. People on the left were able to do a reasonable job of identifying the positions of the right. People on the right were almost completely unable to identify the goals and values of those on the left. I think that’s a big part of the problem. The right doesn’t understand what the left wants and until they do, they will not be successful in engaging the other side.

mehdix 6y ago

Totally agree. Had they made a real change that actually mattered, all this time spent on discussing this rename, could have been put into better use. They created buzz, changed nothing.

martamorena943 6y ago

Yes, this is a good summary of what these changes do. They allow white people to pat themselves on the back, without actually doing anything material to help break down racism.

raffraffraff 6y ago
I think it also burns a certain amount of political capital and good will. People only have so much "give a fuck" to spare, and if you force them to use it in meaningless ways, it's a waste.
- andrepd 6y ago
  Absolutely, this is another thing I feel strongly about. People have limited energy, attention, resources. Every news segment that opens with "pc gone mad! radical leftists want to ban the word "blacklist"!" is a news segment that doesn't open with "wages have been stagnant for the past 50 years despite gains in productivity" "prices of tvs and smartphones falling, prices of housing and healthcare skyrocketing" "statistical studies show voter preferences have near-zero correlation with effected legislation, while preferences of the wealthier 0.5% are very strongly correlated" "hey have you noticed that the EU is hilariously undemocratic" etc etc.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    If your belief is that in the absence of minor controversy, we'd have better media, I think you're optimistic. We'll always have controversy and I really doubt that reducing it would improve the level of discourse one iota. Media that prioritises controversy will do whatever they can to find or foment it rather than discuss the topics you listed.
- vinceguidry 6y ago
  Generating controversy in support of your cause is generally thought of as building political capital, not spending it. You want to focus energy on what people on your side will agree with, and, crucially, can have a personal impact towards. You can see this dynamic in Republican posturing in the Biden era. Biden is a much harder topic for Republicans to attack. His Covid relief bill has broad bipartisan support and he's an old white guy just like Republicans like to see in office. So instead of wasting time and effort on trying to attack Biden or Covid relief, they spent the last few weeks attacking cancel culture and Dr. Seuss. This move is the opposite, it lets those interested in social justice and equality participate in a political action. Any time you can energize your base around something, that's a great boon to your side. More generally speaking, political battles are fought by people who care, not by people who don't. Actions taken that cause the uncaring to care even less are fine so long as they can get some people to care more. For no better an illustration of this look to PETA. The only reason we still know who they are is because they've taken this as a holy dictate. We still know who they are because they're fantastically successful at creating absolute zealots.

crb002 6y ago

The worst I have seen is the media's failure to cover that Google - and probably Microsoft too - blacklisted historic black universities for over a decade. This a juke, a pump fake - not something substantial.

tunesmith 6y ago

Honest question, my initial response is that it only trivializes the movement if "see, we changed something" is used as an excuse to stop there. But if it isn't... what's the harm? Most of this family of points seems to equate 1) being in favor of changing master to main; and 2) being in favor of stopping there.

throwaway894345 6y ago
Well, what else has been accomplished? What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people? Sure, some cities have passed legislation to defund their police, and consequently murder rates are sky-rocketing (and probably not so much in wealthy white neighborhoods of those same cities nor in other more conservative jurisdictions). There are some colorblind reforms that something like 90% of Americans supported in one form or another; hardly anything controversial, but this is the most substantial thing that I can think of that can be credited as a consequence of the movement, but it's far too soon to figure out whether that will have an impact on any disparities. What am I missing? I'm guessing there are some negative effects that no one is bothering to measure, like the extent to which these vapid measures nudge people to the right or make them unsympathetic to the movement.
- ben509 6y ago
  > What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people? Mostly nothing. Corporations can largely only avoid harming various groups, and engaging in fair business practices. They're not set up, by their incentive structure, to do work that reforms society at large. Even non-profits need to focus on a specific mission, and they're usually most successful by putting people in touch with each other. Because, especially if you look at it through the lens of "material" help, the further an action is from the control of the individual being helped, the amount of good that can be done per unit effort drops off dramatically. We normally view individualism as a normative claim, that "the rugged individual" ought to help himself. But you can cast it as an observation: most help in your life is only effective (again, in terms of return for the effort involved) if it comes from you personally or someone quite close to you.
6y ago

boardwaalk 6y ago

This seems pretty close to just saying, “If we can’t change the world, let us change nothing at all.” Sure, it’s trivial. It doesn’t, in any significant way, actually do anything. But I find a lot of time when reviewing code — if there are code badly formatted or variables misspelled, I have a hard time looking at the actually problems in the code until those superficial things are fixed.

patorjk 6y ago
But changing master to main doesn't fix anything, nor did the author find it a problem to begin with. I think the point is to focus on real change and not fake change, because the former is what's important and the latter is a distraction.
root_axis 6y ago
> This seems pretty close to just saying, “If we can’t change the world, let us change nothing at all.” I don't see it that way. In my view, this change is worse than "nothing at all" because it doesn't represent any substantive change, but it does create fodder for bad faith actors to portray the movement for social justice as trivial.
- zeroimpl 6y ago
  On the other hand, now that the name change is done, if there are more protests then nobody will waste time talking about whether Github should change the branch name. This time, people were talking about it even before Github did anything, so it was going to be a distraction regardless. Github doing this ought to be considered just closing the book on this discussion IMO.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    Sure. The change itself means nothing to me, I don't think "master" or "main" makes any difference, it's the use of github's corporate megaphone to project this triviality onto the wider discussion about social justice that I take issue with.
6y ago

akerro 6y ago

>I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. What do you mean? Name change of a default branch clearly fixes issues of racism in the software industry. Racism in IT = gone

josteink 6y ago
Can confirm. I’ve detected no racism on GitHub since master was renamed main. Clearly the problem must be solved now.

chris_wot 6y ago

I am genuinely curious: the LibreOffice team changed the file blacklist to excludelist. Do you believe this was just tokenism? I personally thought it was a great thing. But I am interested in hearing your perspective.

pwm 6y ago
Imho meaningful change: (blacklist, whitelist) -> (excludelist/denylist, allowlist) Imho meaningless lip service: master branch -> main branch Also imho the most insulting towards PoC and everyone else for that matter is to patronisingly assume people can't comprehend context, as OP's article points it out.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  I believe that usage of 'master' in git was copied from bitkeeper which did reference the master/slave relationship. Whereas blacklist in its original forms was used outside of a racial context. I think it'll be pretty hard to try to break the association between black (the color) and night, hiddenness, unknown, sin, fear, etc. All of which are pretty negative, but not originally racial. I find it difficult to distinguish one of these changes from the other in terms of usefulness. I also don't hold much truck with the 'insulting' and 'patronising' thing. It's perfectly possible for a white person to prefer to remove inappropriate and confusing terminology that trivialised historical injustices and/or glorified things they disagree with regardless of whether or not non-white people are offended by such usage. There seems to be an underlying view that a white person could only want to change such usage for inauthentic reasons. If we want to find things patronising, I find that patronising. Just because you're white doesn't mean you can't hold an authentic position of your own on these topics.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Cogito 6y ago
    > I believe that usage of 'master' in git was copied from bitkeeper which did reference the master/slave relationship. The (likely) basis for this belief, the GNOME mailing list post[0] that reignited this discussion in 2019, was retracted the next year[1]. I wrote a summary of the history[2] for Git Rev News, the git developers newsletter. In short, the usage didn't come from BitKeeper, and was intended to mean 'master copy'. After the article was published, Aaron Kushner from BitKeeper reached out and gave me some more history on the usage of 'slave repository' in that one particular spot in BitKeeper[3]: it was a presentation for a client that was already using master/slave terminology and so the same terms were used in the presentation. 0: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/... 1: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June/msg00023.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June... 2: https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ 3: https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505 https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505

heresie-dabord 6y ago

The major injustices and crimes of history were profitable because a targeted group was dehumanised for the gain of others. The economic victimisation of black people in the US continues to be profitable. > it trivializes the movement As a developer, I am comfortable with the change in terminology. As a human... My phenotypes are different from yours and OP's, but I am certain that if we do not bring the critique to bear against systemic enslavement of people (regardless of "targeted" phenotypes), we have all missed the point and really changed nothing. Who is blacker or whiter or truer to the tribe... these are serviceable distractions. Slavery is abhorrent to any enlightened human. But slavery existed and continues to exist because those who profit like it that way.

Hammershaft 6y ago
But what does this have to do with using the concept of master / slave as an apt technical analogy? How does changing technical terminology help close racial gaps in opportunity or change outdated attitudes on race? It seems to me (a white guy) that this accomplishes nothing compared to other uses of the time, energy, and $ that this wastes. If I were at the head of the org I would take the time & $ that would be wasted on this effort and invest it into underserved black schools. (of which there are many in the US)
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  > an apt technical analogy It's really not an apt technical analogy. The most significant aspects of the master/slave relationship (ownership) are not present in the technical version.
  - Hammershaft 6y ago
    I think thats true for git, (altho the master branch could also refer to a master record), but there are a lot of uses of master/slave terminology in computer tech that are more apt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%2Fslave_%28technology%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%2Fslave_%28technology%2...

conductr 6y ago

I tend to agree with triviality. But I’m white and can’t vocalize that opinion IRL. However I do feel like people of my pigment also do these things as risk mitigation. Eg. Most of the world was caught off guard by the Dr Seuss thing. It seems quite obvious to me the family proactively took the books out of print because the fallout from being targeted by SJW or whoever would be huge. People are out there looking for things to be offended by, brands to attack, etc and if you’re a big company you don’t want to be caught in those crosshairs. That said, I do recall getting “pat us on the back” vibes from GitHub but just wanted to throw this alternate justification out into the discussion.

munk-a 6y ago
> the Dr Seuss thing Can I just briefly highlight that this wasn't "a thing" per se? This was a company privately deciding to pull some poorly selling publications from active publishing and adding a positive PR spin by calling out some questionable decisions in the art. This was made into "an issue" by some pretty rabid media outlets rebranding it as government censorship while the decision was entirely privately made. That's a pretty terrible mis-categorization. These sorts of controversies, from both the right and the left, sell news papers and that's the reason why media latches onto them so aggressively.
- conductr 6y ago
  > This was a company privately deciding That was my point. Risk mitigation IMO
- Jiro 6y ago
  If you recall, ebay now refuses to let people sell the books. This can't be justified by poor sales.
  - vmception 6y ago
    They jumped on it. Ebay and Amazon jumped on the misinterpretation and that is squarely their mistake. The Dr Seuss estate wasn't afraid of SJW's randomly cancelling them. And neither was Ebay or Amazon, which were instead signalling support for a society retcon that nobody - not even Dr Seuss' estate - asked for. Those latter companies are staffed by people experiencing the same cognitive dissonance in this comment thread.

908B64B197 6y ago

A (black) engineer colleague of mine told me about his team's effort to change master to main. The whole initiative was started by a rainbow colored hair (white) PM and since it was what they believed to be a highly visible and easy fix, grew to a team of 5. All non-technical PMs of course. They ended up producing a "manifesto of inclusive software" where they listed every word they considered offensive and what it should be replaced with and made a very public announcement regarding the change. The only response to their email was my (black) colleague asking if the branch renaming could be postponed to after a release because he didn't know what it could break in the build and release automation in case "master" is hard-coded somewhere. This apparently started a lengthy thread between him and the 5 PMs where they explained to him that the reason he wasn't supportive of the change was because of the "systemic and cultural racism" he apparently internalized.

arp242 6y ago
> This apparently started a lengthy thread between him and the 5 PMs where they explained to him that the reason he wasn't supportive of the change was because of the "systemic and cultural racism" he apparently internalized. If you feel that the master branch is a symptom of systemic and cultural racism then sure, feel free to make your case. I am interested in what you have to say and will do my best to consider what you have to say as best as I can. But once people start making these kind of arguments it's clear to me I'm dealing with someone in simplex transmit-only mode and not receiving anything I have to say. I really hate these kind of arguments. It's just gaslighting and handwaving away of whatever people are saying. "Your argument is invalid because you are subconsciously racist". Right, what makes you such an expert on my subconscious, hm? This is where I lose interest in talking to people. I'm about as liberal as they come, but in the last few years I've mostly lost interest in social justice cause not because I think the cause is bad, because there are too many people involved that are just thoroughly unpleasant to deal with. It's high time the community ejects some of its more toxic elements, which will benefit everyone, but thus far they're mostly protected, defended, and even celebrated because "they're on our team". But that's not how it works. Assholes are assholes, no matter which team they're on.
Jiro 6y ago
What happened then? Maybe in response, he said "no, I didn't internalize any racism, and here's a list of reasons why that logically isn't racist at all", and they said "Oh, never mind then". Or maybe not. If accusing people of internalizing systemic racism didn't work, nobody would do it. We have a system where accusing a person of racism is an instant win and cannot be argued with, and as long as it is an instant win, it's going to be used, even against actual black people.

alienthrowaway 6y ago

> If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. As another black SWE - I have to ask which hearts are we trying to open? Some are far too gone and it would be a waste of time to try to convince them to let go of their bigotry. The very same will feign engagement and argue in bad faith while being energy vampires. Why should I supplicate racists before I have my dignity as a human? Fuck "hearts and minds" - I have no way of definitively knowing those - I'll take changed behavior instead, that's all I truly care about. If I ever have kids, I can't have them live like this. > we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message I agree, but you need to consciously consider who these people are - if it's everyone, then the battle is already lost.

root_axis 6y ago
>I have to ask which hearts are we trying to open? Some are far too gone and it would be a waste of time to try to convince them to let go of their bigotry Any that can be opened. The ones that are "too far gone" are moot by definition, so we should keep in mind those who might see things differently if we communicate in a way that reaches them rather than puts up roadblocks. > The very same will feign engagement and argue in bad faith while being energy vampires Yes, there are many of these people, but my argument is that actions like this empower bad faith actors. > Why should I supplicate racists before I have my dignity as a human? We fundamentally disagree that use of the word "master" in a technical context is racist or a denial of human dignity. Using the word "main" instead of "master" doesn't improve economic, social, or political outcomes for black people, it doesn't do anything except create fodder for the bad faith actors. > Fuck "hearts and minds" I think this approach hurts the cause. I don't see how our children grow up in a better world if we abandon all hope of reasoning with our fellow citizens. However, as my comment stated, my advice only make sense if the goal is to change hearts and minds, if you don't care about that then my reasoning does not apply. > but you need to consciously consider who these people are As you already pointed out, we can't know who they are, thus I think it is prudent to craft broad messaging in a manner that is suitable for those who can be convinced, not those who are already convinced, or those who cannot ever be convinced. I also want to highlight that my comment includes the caveat "where appropriate", that is to say, we should be strident in the face of discrimination and bigotry, but I don't agree that the status quo for git branch names are an example of such problems.

nopeNopeNooope 6y ago

This of it more like this: It's a micro-aggression targeting the people who have never, ever considered their words in a larger context before. It's totally useless, 100% agreed. It's really fucking irritating to those people, as intend, so they come forward and self identify, so they can be removed.

charlescearl 6y ago

As a Black data scientist I will say that words have power. That naming things has power. That acknowledging the depth of white supremacy, its depravity, and need to utterly and completely remove it and all of its vestiges is the most important work that can be undertaken. There used to be a Confederate statue in the town square where I live. Many Black people worked over decades to point out what the statue symbolized, how the Klan had revised history in building that statue. Some white people wanted it gone. Finally a lot of white people wanted it gone. Then these same people began calling for reparations. A local college instituted reparations. There are calls to engage with land back movements. I’ve lived through many backlash cycles. Locally we’re still dealing with egregious health disparities that are costing Black lives daily. There is gentrification. The city’s just lived through a night in which white supremacy took the lives of several Asian women. But something has changed. Words matter. We have to keep chipping away at this monster.

refenestrator 6y ago
In tech, though, asians often outnumber whites at US FAANG companies. Foreigners are vastly overrepresented, jews are overrepresented, blacks are underrepresented, spanish are underrepresented. In American politics/history I totally hear you. But maybe tech is a slightly different animal? 'White supremacy' is a tough sell when <40% are domestic-born christian white. (none of the above comment is intended as a value statement on various ethnicities doing well/poorly, just an observation of how well they're doing).
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  You'd really have to look at the makeup of venture capitalists since they're the ones ultimately "in charge" of our industry. > spanish are underrepresented. I think you mean Hispanics and probably Latinos. Spanish are from Europe.

nxpnsv 6y ago

Also, moral licensing is a thing. “We already did our part” thinking. But they invented a new problem nobody has instead of solving an existing one...

nuc 6y ago

I think the main goal for this kind of symbolic actions is to raise awareness. Only the fact that we are now here discussing about the problem, is a big success, imho. Should they also do, not only symbolic but also considerable actions? The hell they should. But that doesn’t make the first point moot.

corobo 6y ago

The whole "this is pointless", "that is stupid" movement has definitely thrown up a "fuck it then" anti-signal in my mind. If most things we can do is pointless, fuck it, everything we do is probably pointless. I'm actively fighting against my own mindset to keep looking for things I can do that will make an effect. Most probably won't. I get it's just virtue signalling or whatever phrase of the week we're calling it but it's also inertia. Yes this one is pointless, but maybe the next step isn't. Anyone that's ever been told what they're doing is useless will never know. Shamefully I didn't give any consideration to anyone but myself, keeping my existing mindset everyone on the internet was a white guy like me with all the privileges I have. GitHub changing master to main might have been a joke to you, fair enough, but it opened my eyes. I dunno I'm probably just whitesplaining, sorry.

path411 6y ago
I worry that by picking context that have zero or close to zero racist connotations like the master branch, now you are adding racism into the world by adding racist connotations to the master branch.