Comment by quadrifoliate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quadrifoliate | Hacker News Reader

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I used to think stuff like this was ridiculous. It's just a database, who even cares?

However, now I'm all for it.

What has changed? Over working in tech for a while, I noticed some patterns in my coworkers' behavior. I noticed that the same people who didn't switch over to saying "primary" and "replica" back in 2015-ish, and when it started becoming more common, and in fact, actively ridiculed it (just like I did) were the same people who would casually say things like “Oh those Indians screwed it up” while talking about problems with an overseas helpdesk. They didn't even consider that I, as someone of Indian descent who was apparently "all right" in their view would be offended by this (Note: when the screwup was, say, due to people from our TX helpdesk, they would never say “Oh, those Texans screwed it up”). Oh, and I never heard this kind of stuff from the few women or PoC in our office.

Now I can easily see how at least one black coworker would be offended by these people animatedly discussing how the "slave" is not correctly following the "master", and how it might affect their work day, week, or month in a really bad way.

In general I have seen that people who think more about the language they use and how it might affect others seem to make better, nicer coworkers. That's really the primary reason I support these changes now.

> Note: when the screwup was, say, due to people from our TX helpdesk, they would never say “Oh, those Texans screwed it up”

I can't speak for everyone everywhere, obviously - all teams are different and have their own attitudes - but I did some work in India with a tech support team and the phrase "the American's screwed it up" was used a reasonable amount in the cases we looked at.

For whatever it's worth - which, again, isn't much other than to say that any individual (you, me, etc.) experience isn't a set rule, at least one my U.S. team the women (including PoC) complained about the India team's work significantly more often than the men, though I think this was because some of the men happened to interact more with the India team and so got to know them a bit better (there were exceptions in all directions, but I'm just saying majorities here).

I think it has much less to do on both ends with any kind of actual bias and more with the ease to blame the team "over there" as opposed to people next to you - people blamed teams in other parts of their own building (U.S. and India alike) just as quickly/often as ones overseas.

I'm not at all opposing complaining about another team's work. If it's not up to scratch, complain by all means! I have lots to complain about regarding our accounting department, for instance.

> at least one my U.S. team the women (including PoC) complained about the India team's work significantly more often than the men,

Yep, I don't see a direct contradiction here? Complaining is fine, using race/nationality-specific language is not.

Perhaps I should make it emphasize that the thing I disliked was using generally reductive term “Indians” which is much wider than the subset they are referring to, which is the specific set of people employed by their company who are working out of India. It could have included you, for instance! (even though my guess is that you're not Indian).

Except that slavery is not historically tied to one race only and frankly, it's a bit racist to imply that it is.

Your observation is curious to me, perhaps it was worded confusingly.

"I noticed that the same people who ... actively ridiculed it (just like I did) were the same people who would casually say things like “Oh those Indians screwed it up”..."

So you are saying that you noticed that if someone actively ridiculed these things before, that they were casually racist. I assume that you were not casually racist when you actively ridiculed these things.

So this means 3 or 4 things to me:

Initially, my first thought is that you admit that you yourself were part of the first group but deny the label you assigned to the second group to yourself.

In other words, it seems to me that you are making a generalisation of people's characters which is inaccurate as you yourself admit that it's inaccurate.

Or perhaps its okay to generalise if most of the people you observed had this pattern of behaviour, because it doesn't mean that the exceptions (including you) prove it false?

Or... is it that you were part of both groups 5 years ago and you and most people in the first group have changed over time to both accept these new terms and stopped using casual racist talk?

> Or... is it that you were part of both groups 5 years ago and you and most people in the first group have changed over time to both accept these new terms and stopped using casual racist talk.

Yep, this. I agree that me arguing for the use of "master" and "slave" in 2014 was likely racist, and would have made a black coworker uncomfortable.

IMO I think it's important and useful to acknowledge when your language has been racist in the past. I think this acknowledgement is what most people shy away from, instead preferring to retreat into ever more complicated arguments about why they are right or the “I never meant...” defense.

Thanks for clarifying! Yes it's certainly more important. I hope your old co workers have also changed over time too!

Personally I've luckily not worked with any who were in the strongly disagreeing camp nor who expressed casually racist talk before - but I know a few who would roll their eyes at the whole "game".

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