July 15th, 2020 | Virtue signaling

Today I had a meeting at work. All the engineering and design teams gathered together and talked about their progress. Both individually, and as teams.

Before starting, the host of the meeting talked about GitHub's decision to change the name of the 'master branch' to 'main branch'.

He asked for our opinions, and since we don't live in Silicon Valley, I laughed out loud and said "What the fuck, right?"

Some people smiled or laughed with what I said. Others voiced the argument that since we are not oppressed people, we will never understand what this means for others and it may be an important issue.

I said I agree with that statement but don't think me pushing to the 'main' branch will solve racism. It's just another cheap marketing stunt by one of the largest corporations in the world. Nothing more, nothing less. They stand for cultural and social changes in the West, while modern day slaves assemble their products in the East. Underaged children working for 2 cents per hour in dangerous working environments. Those are real slaves.

A designer spoke up and argued that since we are white, we shouldn't speak. Because this is not done for us, but for oppressed people.

I get it. But I see this as white-on-white crime. I only see white privileged tech people that make half a million every year pushing for these changes. Not black people. It's posturing and virtue signaling.

As Naval says, it's white collar American vs blue collar American, and the weapon of choice is virtue signaling.

I live in Europe, but from what I see, black people in the US want equal opportunities. They want to feel safe and protected by the police. They want to be more represented in companies. In universities. The state. I'm pretty sure they never asked for a fucking 'main' branch in programming.

I honestly think it's a bit insulting.

Another person in the meeting stated that words are powerful, and we think in words. Therefore, if you use better words, you will think better.

That's a valid argument.

The scary thing about this situation is that if you don't fully agree, you are automatically flagged as being racist.

I started feeling a bit uncomfortable in the call.

My whole argument is that I see only white privileged tech people pushing for these changes. Not black people. Black people want police reform, not git reform. If I saw black people asking or protesting for changes in git, I would be all for it.

But let's be real. This change is for white people to feel better about themselves. And it's the PR departments of these large companies doing their job.

GitHub had an important issue with serving ICE. That was about border control in the US. Children being separated by their parents. Am I the only that feels that this is ironic?

Before wrapping up the discussion, I made a small joke to lighten the air, and said that we also have to change our 'Master' degrees to 'Main' degrees now.

Then we went on with the meeting.

The world is a bit scary at the moment. I'm sure that if this post went viral, I would be fucked. I would be cancelled. Lynched. Skinned alive by the modern "left".

At the end of the day, this is just my own perspective. I don't live in the US. I don't know what it's like to be black in America. I could be wrong.

Edit: This is probably the first and last time I ever write about anything political. These are sensitive issues you should only discuss face to face, in my opinion. Not on blogs. Not on Twitter. I feel strange just posting this.

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