Here's an easy test: does it offend someone? yes? then consider changing it.
"Is it offensive enough?" is a really bad hill to die on.
"Is it offensive enough?" is a really bad hill to die on.
You’ll also find people saying they find Y correct and X offensive.
Giving in without question that easily can result in others being offended. Sometimes you have people who’ll take a mile if you give them an inch. Some things are clearly offensive, sure, but if most people are asking “how is this even a problem?”, it’s not good to just change it because they say it bothers them.
The word "slave" has a very real and very painful real-world history and baggage for a lot of people, and we should no longer be using it in our technical language.
And this is not about condemning past actions but about taking the opportunity to do better in the future. Is our profession not about continuous learning and improvement? Why should that improvement only be technical in nature?
No one is asking for carte blanche to blindly agree to any and all future changes without any thought or discussion.
But this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who stops for a minute to think about it.
Also saying that "most people don't see it as a problem" is part of the problem. That can't be the only metric. This is exactly the mentality that leads to disrespect and disenfranchisement of underrepresented parts of our community.
It’s not even a what if.
Stones and glass houses and all that.
Simply put: don’t be needlessly ridiculous.
If you're not being facetious, then I will edit it.