[dsun180]

Same here in germany. When we hear the word master, most people think of the master in karate kid or the master degree of a university. I think only in the usa people are so full of hate that they directly think of bad stuff.

[creato]

The funny thing is, I don't think very many people thought of "bad stuff" before this idiotic culture war planted it in everyone's mind, even if in a negative light.

I would bet that most people didn't have any idea that words like "grandfather" or "blacklist" had (or didn't have) any racist history.

Wouldn't it have been better to just let the words outgrow their history? These words were already dead or dying as racist terms. Not any more.

[pydry]

I think the point was to generate a lot of noise that distracts away from the whole awkward "selling software to concentration camp" thing.

And, policing language generates a spectacular amount of distracting, harmless (to Microsoft) controversy.

[ekianjo]

> I would bet that most people didn't have any idea that words like "grandfather" or "blacklist" had (or didn't have) any racist history.

Faulty pattern recognition machine at blame.

[caf]

I don't know, but it seems plausible that awareness of the term's origin might well be considerably higher among those whose own father or grandfather was disenfranchised by one of the original grandfather clauses.

I at least was intellectually gratified to learn about it.

[offby37years]

The idiotic culture war is media led: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great...

> In 2011, just 35% of white liberals thought racism in the United States was “a big problem,” according to national polling. By 2015, this figure had ballooned to 61% and further still to 77% in 2017.

[Ichthypresbyter]

In the Netherlands, which unlike Germany was significantly involved in the transatlantic slave trade, AFAIK the word meester never had any connotations of slavery, only of expertise and teaching ability (as in a guild master).

It's still used to refer to a male teacher, particularly in elementary schools, as well as being the title used by lawyers.

A slave owner was simply a slavenhouder.

[brnt]

Or slavendrijver, which is still a very derogatory way to point out exploitative behavior.

I think an important difference between ex-colonial European powers and the US is that the (ethnic) slavery did not take place on European soil. Most colonies were operated with very few Europeans to oversee, and as such people were not as exposed to it as people in the US, where masters and slaves would perhaps not live in the same part of town, but also not a continent away. So this may explain why those terms seem inoffensive/only have their meaning outside of the slavery context in Europe.

[Tomte]

I wouldn't say they are full of hate. Slavery has defined the country and has repercussions still.

But I'm really worried about how we import everything American to Germany without thinking twice.

Left newspapers have started to write BIPoC everywhere when it comes to domestic issues. What exactly are the indigenous people of Germany? Even blacks are relatively rare. It would make much more sense to coin an acronym that includes Jews, Sinti and Roma, given our sordid history. But we simply take what American culture has thought up.

[myspy]

We have problems to integrate Turkish or Russian immigrants and their children as Germans, not as people from elsewhere. As well as the refugees from Syria.

[fho]

Having lived in a mostly Turkish neighborhood for five years (as a German, Turkish landlord, Turkish "housemates" (?)) I think some just don't want to be integrated...

Landlord was pretty chill and I kind of miss being able to just ask anything and he would try to make it happen (including things like repairing car motors).

Housemates were of the mildly radicalized religious kind, with daughters that did not attend the normal school system and are now being married of early.

I don't know if the German "integration system" has failed for the later ... they have the freedom to chose and they chose a path that is different from what is considered "normal" in the "West".

[ficklepickle]

I think "integration" is a sham. Integration implies a give and take, a compromise. It seems actually assimilation or submission is what many Euro countries want.

As a Canadian (Vancouver), I can tell you true integration happens over generations of people working together and respecting each other. In those conditions, it is unavoidable.

If either group lacks respect, the outcome is always conflict.

You put their kids into school together young and they won't know not to be friends until you tell them. That was my experience, anyway.

[bad_good_guy]

And yet you've ignored the person you're responding to in their claim that turkish immigrants don't send their children to the same schools.

I'm all for give and take but I wouldn't want the "give" to result in backwards steps for woman's rights being imported from the countries of origin

[nix23]

>It seems actually assimilation or submission is what many Euro countries want.

No we think that forced marriage has no place in Europe, or the oppression of woman's. And yes, that's our culture..so is the freedom to choose your religion and to have free speech. If someone from another culture comes we are happy to integrate it into ours, but NOT when it clashes with our Laws.

>You put their kids into school together young and they won't know not to be friends until you tell them.

And what when they go into different schools (Jewish or Muslim etc), live in different parts of the City (look at Paris or Berlin), and never met someone outside of their bubble until 20 or later?

BTW:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia_in_Canada

[fho]

> but NOT when it clashes with our Laws

I said it in another post ... it's not about being forced into something, it's about freedom of choice. And that is something universal, it's just codified in our laws.

It's completely fine if a women decides to become married and have children early ... it's probably not a good choice ... but morally there is no way to reject that.

The problem arises when people never learn that they have a choice ... I have (female) friends from rural Germany that think it's perfectly reasonable to go study and once finished move in with their husband and be the perfect stay-at-home mom.

edit: heck ... I even have friends from larger cities who would just prefer to be stay-at-home moms because that gives an excuse to sloth on the couch for half of the day :-)

[clusterfish]

The point is, "BIPoC" means specifically "Black, Indigenous, People of Color". It does not mean "immigrants" or "refugees" or "all marginalized groups" or whoever else needs social justice in Germany.

Borrowing that specific term for other purposes is stupid.

[jokethrowaway]

As an immigrant, I didn't want to leave my country, let alone integrate where I did.

I was forced to because the government in my country steals and wastes so much money that the economy breaks and you can't make money there. Still the quality of life is much better at home and I'd rather stay there.

All my friends are immigrants, I couldn care less to integrate here. Ideally I'd just rather live in a town with just immigrants from my country. As long as you keep them out of politics they'll probably won't rob you.

[jdmoreira]

Interesting. I also left my country but mostly because there wasn’t really anything left for me there and I met my girlfriend and she was from somewhere else... So I moved to her country.

Her country is clearly superior in almost everything except for weather and food. I like living here and I've made good friends and enjoy my life here.

Now the curious part comes... I have zero attachment to both countries, their culture and their national identities. I couldn’t care less about their language or customs. I just see myself has some kind of post-nationalistic person that would much rather speak English with everyone, hang out on the internet and live wherever.

As far as I'm concerned national identities and culture are useless and holding us down as a species. I really wish people could outgrow this nonsense.

[cycomanic]

I partly feel the same. I agree with you that identification with a country (patriotism/nationalism) is holding us back. However I do recognize that my upbringing has shaped me culturally and similar in my behaviour. Similarly the 3 other countries I have lived in for significant time, which have also formed my personality. I also do feel attachment to those places, but this is much more due do people and the location, not the nation.

[jdmoreira]

I agree with you that the culture I was raised in has had a huge effect on me. You can take the man of the country but you can’t take the country out of the man.

In hindsight I don’t think I was raised in a particularly enlightened culture. Do those even exist? I would much rather have us move past dumb social biases and constructs and work together to build a better future and a more universal and cooperative world.

[nlitened]

> Ideally I'd just rather live in a town with just immigrants from my country.

That town was in your country which you fled though.

[stuaxo]

Having met some white people in Asia, it's not like immigrant (ex-pat) community all make that much effort to integrate.

[lokedhs]

Just like any other immigrants, westeners in Asia integrate do different degrees. Some only hang out with people from their own country and refuse to go to anything but restaurants that serve their own food. While others practically become locals.

Some nationalities integrate more than others. This goes for different European countries even, so it has very little to do with "race".

[ficklepickle]

I understand and I think that is acceptable. I'd welcome you and yours in Canada. When both groups respect each other, true integration comes over generations of working together.

Obviously we did not respect the Indigenous people and I hope that can me mended through generations of mutual respect.

I think Vancouver is better because of the rich mix of cultures. It's not perfect here but I think it is pretty good. I have seen a Muslim man give his shoes to a homeless man on the bus and walk home barefoot in the rain. I believe anything is possible.

[enriquto]

> What exactly are the indigenous people of Germany?

Ha! I remember a drunken night with a north-american colleague; he asked why didn't we have indigenous people here in Europe. Then he suddenly realized the answer: oh, but it is you, you all are!

[gsich]

I haven't heared anyone using those terms in spoken conversations.

[goatinaboat]

Slavery has defined the country

I don't think this is true. What percentage of White Americans, during the period of slavery, owned any slaves? Was it even 1%?

It is one facet of American history yes, but it is very far from the "definition" of the country.

[funcDropShadow]

Actually, my first association - as a German - with master is the craftsman title "Meister".

[mbeex]

I'm in no way a native speaker - but even I recognize that in English 'master' has - and always had - many different meanings. One of them completely equal to the German 'Meister'.

It is all about context. Question is, why certain groups emphasize - or better: impose deceivingly by altering him - the wrong context to a crystal-clear situation.

[ekianjo]

It is the only right association because it's the same word coming from "magister" in Latin and which traveled to become maestro in Italian, meister in German, maestre and then maitre in French and finally master in English.

[dsun180]

And then somewhere in 2019 it suddenly became a racist word against people of color in northern amerika.

[ekianjo]

Pretty sure next we are going to end up banning letters, because there's probably some letters that are intrinsically racist or something.

[mikaeluman]

Same in Swedish: Mästare. Magister is also a word used in Sweden for teachers at schools.

[sgtnoodle]

"I'm in the USA. I think only in Germany are people so full of themselves that they over-generalize entire nations with their own ignorant assumptions."

That would be a rather rude, dare I say hateful thing for me to say, wouldn't it? In reality, I really enjoyed all the places in Germany I've visited, and most of my interactions with German folk that I've interacted with socially and professionally over the years. I especially enjoyed taking a technical and engineering German language course, so I can appreciate words like "Kaftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung" and "benzinbetriebenes Motorsystem". I wouldn't think to make such a comment about the German people, like you did about people in the USA.

[vermilingua]

Interpreting that as a personal attack, and leaping straight to a retaliation would sorta be evidence for their statement, no?

[sgtnoodle]

The point I'm attempting to make is that stating blanket negative over-generalizations about any group of people isn't productive, and in this case it's seemingly ironic to me. If you think I'm a hateful person because of pointing that out, then by your definition I am hateful and I'm okay with you thinking that. I obviously disagree, though, and I'm happy to attempt to civilly discuss that with you if you'd like.

[yosamino]

Germany is a really bad example though. The German way is to pretend racism just doesn't exist - today is the aniversary of a racist, arson attack that happened in 1994 killing 7 people (one of them pregnant) where the official line is still "the guy was just crazy what can you do ?!".

If you want to transplant the "master"-example, look at all the discussions of how they name certain sauces,schnitzels and deserts as well as a weird insistance that offensively named streets, underground-stations and (for some reason) pharmacies "must not need to be renamed, why would you even be offended".

Germany is not the example to go with concerning offensive language.

[nosianu]

You just showed the problem: Mixing completely different things and pretending it's the same. The parent comment and the parent-parent and the submitted text all talked about something, you come up with something else.

> look at all the discussions of how they name certain sauces,schnitzels and deserts

Okay I do - and that is exactly the useless actions that the submitted text and this discussion is about. For some reason you just ignore all that was said and just repeat those exact criticized points as if nothing happened.

[yosamino]

Well, they parent tried to transplant the word "master" into a german context and noted it doesn't translate. I then gave examples of words that work analogous to the word "master" in English. These things are connected by the concept that "I'm not offended by them, why should anyone else?"

Where these discussions about how Germans call their pharmacies connect to the article is that in both cases the arbiters who decide how things are called are the white - once you start to involve the people that these offensive words are about, you suddenly get a different sense of how important or offensive these words are. There's a recent example of a talkshow where a couple of white more-or-less-celebrities decided that these words are just german heritage, and really what is all the fuzz about ? To appease the ensuing mini-scandal the station organized a roundpanel of people who might be affected by these slurs - and surprise, they really weren't so fond of them.

Or see this article about a campaign to rename a trainstation: https://isdonline.de/umbenennung-der-mohrenstrasse-mehr-resp...

You are obviously right, changing words by itself doesn't change a thing - but if I can't even count on someone not using slurs about me, I can't expect to respected at all.

[linza]

I don't buy the assertion that the German way is to pretend racism just doesn't exist.

There are racists, and fascists, neo-nazis and old-nazis. They do exist, it's just that they don't pose that widespread of a problem in every day life, like it does in other western countries.

I'd say gender (in)equality is something you will encounter much more often in every day life over there.

[fho]

Something about gender equality to keep in mind:

It's about choice ... there are women (also in Germany) that gladly _chose_ to stay at home, _chose_ to prepare meals for their husband and _chose_ to care for the kids.

On the other hand there are women that _chose_ to give their children into daycare weeks after birth to go back to work.

It's not about condemning any lifestyle as wrong, it's about given everybody (males included) the ability to life their live as they want.

Sadly this is far from the reality with median wages being barely high enough to sustain one person, forcing women (and men) to work and robbing them of their agency.

[Brotkrumen]

We've got a far right party that gets around 13% in national elections, in some states around 25%.

We've got a minister of interior that does not want to start a study on racism in the police forces.

That's two of the big issues, that's not even every-day racism where it's hard to get an apartment or a job with a "foreign name", underrepresentation in leading positions or that in some parts you'll get at least hassled for walking with brown skin.

Germany is and always has been extremely conservative and integration/racism is an issue precisely because the largest party always saw imported skilled labor as people that should be forced back "home" again, even with a second and third generation growing up in Germany.

[mbeex]

> The German way is

What exactly do you know about "the" German way?

[read_if_gay_]

> The German way is to pretend racism just doesn't exist

I don't know if and where you've been to Germany, but having went to school there entire years of our history class were dedicated to the Nazis.

[yosamino]

See the thing about that is, that it let's you neatly compartmentalize racism to the nazis, and since the nazis don't exist anymore (well, the ones being talked about in history class) there is not racism or antisemitism anymore.

That is of course simplifying it a lot, but Germany as a whole has a problem with right-wing extremism who almost regularely murder people, and a police force who regularly have scandals involving members being present day Nazis, and these Problems not being adressed properly.

So I am not sure learning about The Nazis of the olden days is very helpful withouth showing the reach that these ideologies have into present day Germany.

And I say that as someone who has gone through these years that you reference as well.

[funcDropShadow]

> but having went to school there entire years of our history class were dedicated to the Nazis.

To be precise it is about the atrocities committed by the Nazis and how they managed to subvert the society to be able do their crimes. By the way they started early on to change the everyday language.

[bionoid]

"Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment" - it was candidly named, if nothing else.

> Indeed, Goebbels initially opposed the term propaganda, recognizing that in popular usage, both in Germany and abroad, it was associated with lies. Even after the ministry had been in existence for a year, he proposed changing its name to Ministry of Culture and Public Enlightenment, but Hitler vetoed this proposal.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ministry-o...

[powerapple]

Of course everyone would have a different feeling towards those words. Every country has their own history. I think it is a positive step in the US going through all these hurdles to address their past. US has the power and the economic leverage to really step to next level, it can afford it.

Every country is different. Developing world wouldn't care about rights, because they have to make cakes as fast as possible, and developed world can spend much time on being fair. It is something we should do.

Is a name change really that difficult for everyone? I remember when I first saw 'main' branch on Azure, yes, I have to slow down a bit, is it the end of world? It means something important for the US, and would be good for the future generation, I think I can afford the personal inconvenience. We, developers, are having the best job in this world, do we really need to get pissed off for this?

[bildung]

> Is a name change really that difficult for everyone?

It's just a complete misunderstanding of the topic. Changing "master" branches simply confuses signified and signifier, and the fact that multiple signified can have the same signifier (like the signifier stool and the signified faeces and a thing to sit on. Removing the word doesn't remove the concept.

If these companies actually wanted to work for diversity, they could just do exactly that: employ more people from other backgrounds, or have extra internships for early orientiation in high school, or fund computer labs schools in poor neighbourhoods and so on.

Edit: As an illustration of how this doesn't affect the underlying meaning: In Germany there's a similar discourse going on, and the result is that the German radical right also started to talk about migrants instead of aliens or foreigners. But they didn't change their attitudes at all! They just adapted to the new word and kept their old concept.

[tester34]

>Is a name change really that difficult for everyone?

So whole world has to change because US has its core problems?

>We, developers, are having the best job in this world, do we really need to get pissed off for this?

do we?

spend thousands of hours of your free time in front of computer just to learn stuff, then spend 3.5/5 or even more years for degree

then stay competitive / in touch with tech as a part of life style

just to have office/remote job with good pay?

is this "best job"? seems decent, but I wouldn't call it "the best", especially in countries where programmers do not have really outstanding pay like in SF.

[FeepingCreature]

It's not difficult, it's offensive and insulting to waste people's time on useless crap. It's a power play.