Please. Even if you don't believe that the terminology has a role in perpetuating stereotypes, it does make people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.
Does it really? Have they told you that, or are you feeling offended on their behalf?
I'm from an Irish / Scottish background.
Maybe I should start crying and wailing, next time someone in the office says, at lunchtime, that they're "starving" - --because it reminds me of the Irish Famine. It might even be cultural appropriation to claim to be "starving" if you're not from a part of the world which has suffered famine.
And if I walk past any shops holding a "Clearance Sale", I'll most likely pass out from the sheer horror of being reminded what my ancestors went through, during the Highland Clearances.
Yes, I have been told that more than once. Usually in requests to address the issue as quietly as possible. It’s always been in the context of new development rather than a request to retrofit older systems), but I don’t know if that’s self-censoring or indifference.
We aren’t talking about cultural appropriation, so why bring it up?
This is about an under-represented group (in tech) subject to current-day prejudice. That’s not irrelevant to how the language is received.
Half my ancestors (English) brutally oppressed the other half (Irish and Scottish). None of that oppression is part of my current day experience. But this isn’t true for Black Americans.
Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this problem?
A lot of this terminology is specifically rather than generally problematic.