[eesmith]

This "new trend" is at least 17 years old - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ .

You'll note the text:

> In May 2003, a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine,

which suggest your "for the sake of making a few white guys" might not be the only purpose.

Other examples have made it to HN, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 on "Replaced occurrences of master/slave terminology with leader/follower " for Django, from 6 years ago.