Python: Avoid master/slave terms

source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slave

While I read it as doubling down on bigotry. "Oh, you think I'm a racist? I'll show you what racism is really like." I find it hard to think that someone who isn't sexist would decide to become sexist out of spite over terminology.

> We've been using the master/slave terminology for years, but it has nothing to do with actual slaves

In technology, the term "master/slave" is used as a metaphor. The master is in command, and the slave is supposed to obey the commands of the master. In this metaphor, we are assumed to be aligned with the interests of the slave master.

This metaphor absolutely has something to do with actual slaves.

In real life we have concluded that the only moral goal for a slave master is to renounce power, and the goal for slaves is freedom.

If we use the modern view when we apply the metaphor then our moral goal should be to free database slaves. Which isn't really what we want.

That's why I agree with the idea of using a different metaphor.

I don't believe anyone would oppose "going this far" in terms of reducing or abolishing actual slavery.

I think what pisses people off is the utter frivolousness of it all. We all know that this is actually not doing anything about actual slavery.

Replacing the word slave in Python or software in general will do actually nothing for actual slaves in the world nor will it change the minds of actual slavers and actual slave owners.

So whilst people probably do not care that much about which specific word is used, they get pissed off by the frivolous sanctimony displayed by the proponents of the change.

That isn't to say that there doesn't exist terminology that people should be mindful of. But most privileged, white people wouldn't recognize it. When the candidate for Florida governor denied using the word "monkey" to illicit traditional racial animus in his conservative base, people on the left were incredulous. But why? As we're seemingly attempting to do with the words "master" and "slave", we work hard to erase the incidents of oppression rather than actually addressing oppression. Is it so hard to believe that, once excised from common speech patterns, the memory of the origins and import of words and phrases is forgotten, even if the undertones linger? Especially among earnest individuals? (You can be earnest but still prejudiced and even prone to using the language of prejudice.)

Now, no doubt blacks in Florida had good reason to be incredulous of his supposed ignorance. But context matters, in particular the perseverance of the more crass language of racism in Florida. The use of the word "monkey" was offensive because of the context and what it implies, quite concretely, about the motives of someone running for a very powerful office that has traditionally done horrible things to certain Florida communities. But nobody is, yet, arguing that we should remove the word monkey from zoo plaques, or stop using terms like monkey-patching.

And that's despite the fact that, very much unlike the word "slave", if you shout out "monkey" in the company of certain groups heads will turn. Chattel slavery doesn't exist and hasn't existed for a long time. Absent a malicious or awkward context, the word "slave" doesn't elicit or trigger any anxiety or anger or tension in African-Americans. That slavery is some pervasive obsession of African-Americans that shapes and colors their every thought is a TV trope, and a racist one at that. Blacks no more identify as a slave then they do a monkey. Again, context matters; it's the context which makes the implication; it's context which turns a word into an instrument of oppression. But when the word and topic legitimately come up it makes privileged whites very uncomfortable, which is why it's so memorable and poignant in their collective imagination, and why it makes for cheap tension in script writing.

A lot of the 'obvious' connotations to americans about words are simply not there for the larger anglophone world. That doesn't make their concerns invalid - just that it's not 'obvious' that the choice of words is poor.

I make no comments on the merits of this particular issue, just a general point about the context in which a lot of the debates are held, especially with non-american english speakers (e.g. antirez).

My first contact with "master" and "slave" were IDE drives.

Removing the term "slave" seems like the big win here.