
On banning racial terms in programming - Gabin
https://medium.com/@Zh0uzi/on-banning-racial-terms-in-programming-bdc5b6255d9f
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mikestew
I think the money quote is "By banning those words, you’re giving them the
meaning you don’t want them to have." When I use "master/slave", it's not
because I'm an insensitive asshole, it's because it has a distinct, technical
meaning that has nothing to do with the topic _you_ might think it does.

And thus it comes down to, "I have chosen for that word to have this
particular meaning (and only that meaning), which I find offensive, therefore
please don't use it anymore.", knowing full well that the speaker meant no
offense when they were discussing the new drive layout. I'm not completely
unsympathetic, but I sometimes feel the sympathy only goes one way.

~~~
hannasanarion
> And thus it comes down to, "I have chosen for that word to have this
> particular meaning (and only that meaning), which I find offensive,
> therefore please don't use it anymore.", knowing full well that the speaker
> meant no offense when they were discussing the new drive layout. I'm not
> completely unsympathetic, but I sometimes feel the sympathy only goes one
> way.

No, it's the other way around. Engineers did not invent these terms. More
like, ""I have chosen to use a word with a particular nonstandard meaning (and
only that meaning), if you find it offensive, it's your fault for not ignoring
the rest of the English language like I do."

This excuse didn't work when you used it to justify saying "ass" and "bitch"
in elementary school, and it certainly doesn't in the workplace.

~~~
nate_meurer
But _ass_ and _bitch_ are not a good comparison to phrases such as _master
/slave_, which have a rich history in programming and convey meaning that
would be difficult to replace. _Master /slave_ tells me that an entity
controls another entity unconditionally. This is a critical aspect of the
relevant relationship, and I know of no other phrase that conveys this meaning
nearly so well. Obviously we use the same words to describe a similar
relationship between human slaves and masters. There's no rational reason to
forbid technically useful and precise language, just because it also describes
something else that we don't like.

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nickmooney
It's not about intention. Nobody believes that the words "master" and "slave"
are _intended_ to cause racial stress in a technical context -- but that's not
the point. The point is that these words do not exist in a vacuum, and for
many people words like "master" and "slave" do in fact evoke historically-
grounded feelings of discomfort, even when that isn't the intent.

When someone says "hey, I feel hurt when you use that term", the correct
response (imo) is to do your best to stop using the term. It's a small
sacrifice to make other people feel safer, and that's absolutely worth it.

~~~
thiht
So if I feel bad when you use the word "sacrifice" (you know, because of human
sacrifice), will you stop using it? Just because I'm overly sensitive?

~~~
nickmooney
I mean, yeah, if you truly feel hurt when I use that word, I won't use it
around you. Absolutely. It's more important to me that the people around me
feel heard and seen than for me to get to use a particular word.

If a whole _group_ of people say "hey this word makes me feel uncomfortable of
hurt," then I try to modify my vocabulary accordingly and eliminate it.

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throwaway5250
We're actually accumulating quite a list of these "stop" words. I can think of
dozens off of the top of my head, many of which don't seem obviously
problematic, but could easily get a person fired if used in the wrong context.

It'd be nice to have a curated list. In theory, both pro- and anti-PC folks
ought to agree on that.

~~~
hannasanarion
Thing with making lists is they get outdated and somebody has to decide when
to change them. Euphemisms are constantly turning into slurs and slurs into
curse words.

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lrrrrrrrrrrrr
I people need to consider the context. Context matters.

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drewrv
> Many places are named after famous slaves that successfully fleed their
> master.

This is great for La Réunion, but many places in the US are named for
slaveholders, or even generals who fought to preserve institutionalized
slavery. There are monuments to these monsters all over and people still
proudly display their traitorous flag. We're touchy about this subject for
good reason.

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methodover
This is a fucking awful blog post. Just because you aren’t offended by it
doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. That’s an awful argument.

It’s trivial to avoid these racially charged words when programming. So just
do it.

Like, if a subordinate at work came to me and was like, “I wish we could do X,
it would make me feel better about working here,” and X is some trivial thing,
it kind of doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand
it. I just fucking do it. It’s trivial, it makes them happy. It costs me
nothing to do. I happily pay $0 to make a happier employee.

This principle isn’t hard, and pays huge dividends in life: listen to people,
and when they tell you something bothers them and it costs you little to fix,
fix it, even if you don’t understand it.

~~~
nate_meurer
Please don't. Down this path madness lies.

I understand that it seems easy to accommodate this one simple request,
because that's just the one that article discusses. However the folks who
really push this nonsense won't stop at program code, and they won't stop at
racial sensitivity. Be prepared to scrub all of your user documentation,
design documents, and marketing material as well. Be prepared to accommodate
the charismatic christians who take offense to references to _daemons_ and
_666_ file access permissions (I personally know such people). Be prepared to
accommodate such sensitive (and politically powerful) individuals as Dallas
County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who will publicly label you a racist if
you utter the phrase "black hole", in either a scientific context or to
describe an inefficient process [1]. Be prepared to police office
communication to minimize gendered language; phrases such as "man-hours" and
"you guys" are often used as examples of sexist language. On and on.

1 -
[https://www.npr.org/sections/newsandviews/2008/07/is_black_h...](https://www.npr.org/sections/newsandviews/2008/07/is_black_hole_a_racist_term.html)

