Comment by zaksoup | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zaksoup | Hacker News Reader

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I really appreciate your thoughtful take here. One thing I think is important to note is that I don't want, and I don't think any hearing impaired person would want (though I can't speak for all of them) for you to spend really any time feeling guilty about a potential offense you might have caused.

What I'm advocating for is radical compassion and empathy. When you hear somebody say "this thing can hurt me" worry less about all the times you were involved in that, and consider more how you can help folks avoid that harm in the future.

That's not to say we should ever introspect. I noticed that with a friend of mine who recently came out as trans I was still often using gendered language "dude, man, etc" from before they came out, even if I usually got their pronouns right. They didn't ask me, but the introspection I was doing prompted me to offer them an apology and commit to doing better about those kinds of things. That has brought us closer and given me a better perspective for being a good friend and ally to them.

I don't think anybody thinks you're trying to be a jerk, or intentionally seeking to hurt people's feelings. What I'm reacting to is a vocal minority of folks, often in tech, who seem to react to being told "Hey, this thing sometimes hurts my feelings when I notice it" with "How dare you accuse me of being literally Darth Vader. This is THOUGHT POLICING."

Just... try your best to be kind to people. If that means you're the CEO of github and you can change "master" to "main" why the heck wouldn't you?

Thanks, I appreciate your perspective and I agree with a lot of it. I absolutely try to be kind to people. There is though, unfortunately, a vocal minority of people who really exact judgement when the wrong words are used, and they’re usually not even part of the group whom would feel hurt by hearing such words. I’m sure they have good intentions also, but I really do think there is too much “word policing” going on. It’s very hard to unlearn every common word or phrase that someone may find offensive, and the feeling is somewhat similar to having a piece of duct tape over your mouth for someone like me. I find myself over analyzing my words and saying “uhhh” a lot trying to make sure the things I say don’t contain any bad words/phrases. As a software engineer, I tend(ed) to use “blacklist/whitelist” a lot, and the new replacement words of “allowlist/denylist” still feel awkward and don’t fit every situation. I’m trying my best to slowly come around and try to adopt all of the new phrases, but it’s a lot more work than the “think before you speak” communicators realize.

I think a better strategy would be to just lead by example and use the phrasing you think is appropriate, as others will likely naturally adopt it as we do with other group context phrases. After all, I learned words like “blacklist” from reading code and technical books and running CLI programs. I just think we should be patient with people, assume good intentions, and never shame people for using the wrong words with the best of intentions.

>If that means you’re the CEO of GitHub and you change “master” to “main” why the heck wouldn’t you?

Because it doesn’t really do anything to solve the underlying issues, and I question the intention behind it. I’d rather see GitHub work to make their teams more diverse, provide assistance to open source projects created by people of color and women, improve access to technical education, etc. than to make a change like this and act like “okay I did it guys, I fixed racism” (I realize that’s disingenuous). It also has a nonzero cost to GitHub and its users, for arguably not much benefit.

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