Prof. Torbjörn Lager was my teacher in a few courses back in around 2005, I even had a beer or two with him. He is a very smart and funny guy - I can say with 100% certainty that he means it as a joke.

No doubt, but that's not the point.

He made the joke in public, and to a portion of his audience it falls flat (to put it mildly.)

That's my point. Some of us will read this paper and not even notice the reference. Some will notice the reference and not be bothered by it.

But then there are those of us who have experienced overt racism connected to this phrase who won't be able to read this paper without thinking about that trauma every other line.

We talk a good talk about making tech more inclusive, but it seems when we have an easy and obvious choice, there is resistance. Taking the MAGA reference out of this paper would do nothing to diminish it on a technical level, and it would cause more people to read it. Perhaps even this thread would have related to the technical merits of the paper, rather than the derailment I caused. Yet there are multiple responses here expressing resistance to the idea on principle. Again, an idea that would result in better outcomes for everyone.