They could easily remove it. It bothers me that the parent comment has been downvoted so heavily—"MAGA" does have racial overtones and probably doesn't belong in a technical document. I'm sure the author meant it as a joke (especially as a European who isn't familiar with American culture), but that doesn't invalidate the criticism.
I didn't know it had racial overtones. Here in the UK it's usually said with a sarcastic laugh when we want to mock Trump and hit him with a slogan we remember from the US presidential campaign. The inference being he's really not 'great' and he's devalued the USA by being its president.
We use it that way as well. As in: "Added $1T to the deficit and still no universal healthcare! #MAGA"
But minorities in this country have to put up with being told to leave now on a regular basis. Hate crimes are on the rise. You're now labeled a racist for standing up to racism. Racists are emboldened and cite the President as the reason for their newfound brazenness. People who simply support the President want to pretend that it's just a slogan, but they're in company with very unsavory people (the KKK aren't Democrats) who use that slogan as a weapon every day. Every. Day. And so to expect to be free from that onslaught in a paper about Prolog I don't think is much to ask. But clearly this is still Trump's world.
It only has ‘racial overtones’ to people trying to disparage a little under half the country. The author should probably remove it, but the continued perverting of people’s arguments and slogans to make them appear racist is not helping anyone.
I see what you're trying to say, but you're extending the OP's comment to address a point he's not making.
If an individual has adopted a characteristic slogan, and that individual makes racist statements, then the slogan can reasonably said to be linked to racist ideas. Note that this analysis doesn't need to include any third parties.
If an individual has adopted a characteristic slogan, and that individual makes racist statements, then the slogan can reasonably said to be linked to racist ideas.
No, that is not a true statement since I can basically make it impossible to say anything by adopting that idea. Number two, your view of what is racist statements if you are talking about the President is skewed. Immigration is a hot button topic, but wanting to reign in immigration is not racist ask anyone fired because their company brought in H1B workers and they had to train them before hitting the road. Heck, the recent hubbub over calling MS-13 animals and then saying its racist shows how screwed these views are.
The professor was obviously having some fun and its a great paper. Stop trying to make people feel bad because you are offended.
I swear, people would claim, "I Like Ike" is racist if it was a 2016 campaign slogan.
The slogan was that of a campaign that was launched on the premise that most Mexicans coming to this country are rapists and murderers, and that by the law of large numbers some end up being good people. Immigration is a hot button issue, but the President has fanned those flames considerably since he came on the scene, and every colored person and minority in this country has felt it. Every KKK member if you ask them will tell you they feel emboldened and empowered by this President in large part due to his rhetoric. If you ask any of your friends of color, they'll tell you things are markedly different now, in large part due to the rhetoric of this President. MAGA is completely tied in with that rhetoric, because what does it imply. What exactly was proposed by the MAGA coalition?
- Build a wall to keep out brown people
- Prevent Muslims from entering the country
- Judges of Mexican descent are unable to do their job because of their race
- Inner cities are hellscapes that require law and order and perhaps the national guard to regain peace
- Homosexuals don't deserve the same rights as the rest of us (ask any Trump supporter if they believe Trump believes in gay marriage and they will tell you no)
- Women deserve to be mocked, disbelieved, assaulted, and their bodies controlled, and there are no repercussions for doing so.
That's what MAGA represents to 50% of the population. So if you want to bring it up in your technical document as a little side quip, and not give a shit about what your readers think, more power to you. But as someone interested in Prolog and would like to see it have a renaissance, I was lost as a reader on the cover page. I don't want to be reminded about the guy at the grocery store telling me to get out of "His" country and go back to where I came from while reading technical documents. MAGA.
> Heck, the recent hubbub over calling MS-13 animals and then saying its racist shows how screwed these views are.
Strange how brown gang members are clearly, unequivocally all animals, but this President has to point out in a group of white torch-bearing khaki-clad Nazis there are still good people! I wonder how many white children in America are separated from their families and held in cages in windowless detention facilities in accordance with official DOJ policy.
ask any Trump supporter if they believe Trump believes in gay marriage and they will tell you no
This basically could be the summary line of everything you wrote. Its about as true as the rest. If you pervert everything and don't actually listen its about as believable as Strange how brown gang members are clearly, unequivocally all animals, but this President has to point out in a group of white torch-bearing khaki-clad Nazis there are still good people!. Go look at some of the pictures of what MS-13 does, and I would hope animal is the least descriptive word.
I do blame the media because they know the outrage sells, but it comes at a cost.
That's what MAGA represents to 50% of the population. So if you want to bring it up in your technical document as a little side quip, and not give a shit about what your readers think, more power to you. But as someone interested in Prolog and would like to see it have a renaissance, I was lost as a reader on the cover page. I don't want to be reminded about the guy at the grocery store telling me to get out of "His" country and go back to where I came from while reading technical documents. MAGA.
I suppose you have similar objections to the late night comics and Tony awards? Just read the paper about an amazing language and understand that about 50% aren't monsters and don't hate people.
> I do blame the media because they know the outrage sells, but it comes at a cost.
I hardly listen to the media. I listen to the President's words and watch his actions. Trump accused a judge of being unfit due to his racial heritage, not the media. Trump called for a ban of all Muslims entering the US. "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on" I believe were his exact words. You claim media bias, whereas I see a string of clearly racist behavior.
> I suppose you have similar objections to the late night comics and Tony awards?
I don't watch late night comedy or the Tony awards. I read scientific papers. I think there is a problem with marginalization of minorities in tech. I'm not the only one.
> Just read the paper about an amazing language and understand that about 50% aren't monsters and don't hate people.
Okay, I'll agree to read the paper and consider what you say, if you'll agree to consider that some people are monsters; said monsters say they feel emboldened by this president (just ask them); and that some people have to face said monsters at a higher frequency than others due to the nature of their skin, religion, sexual orientation, etc.; and maybe these people look toward tech to be a respite from that. Some people face monsters down on the sidewalk, at work, at school, at the dentist, in traffic, and now of all places in a Prolog paper. And despite the fact that tech writ large likes to champion a message of inclusivity, there seems to be a strong under-current with a desire to prop up messages of exclusivity. Just consider it.
Nope, sorry, you said all and I know people who voted for Trump and they are the nicest most helpful people around. You are fear mongering all of them and need the world edited so it doesn't offend you while not acknowledging that the vast array of media offends about 50% out of spite. I don't think you actually are listening to anyone else and certainly the complete shutdown comment comes not from the actual executive orders.
Yeah, there is a problem marginalizing minorities in tech, but it is the fault of awful recruiting practices by the schools tech companies hire from to remain elite. I'm on a rez, and am a bit sick of being an "other".
> I don't think you actually are listening to anyone else and certainly the complete shutdown comment comes not from the actual executive orders.
That language is missing from the executive orders because it would be blatantly and gobsmackingly illegal. Trump went to Rudy Guliani and asked him to make the text of his Muslim ban decree pass legal muster. That's not according to the media, that's from Guliani's own mouth. So we've got a blatantly racist statement getting watered down to an obfuscated racist statement loosely predicated on national security reasoning and some vague call for extreme vetting and terrorist states.... but for those of us on the receiving end of such proclamations, we hear the message loud and clear. There are exactly 0 Muslims who heard his "Total and Complete Shutdown" proclamation and then saw the travel ban and thought "Phew, it turns out Trump isn't anti Muslim after all." No, they recognized that Trump couldn't get what he wanted 100%, but what he did get represented a personal attack on them based on their religion. That attack happened and it hurt people and families, and that doesn't change because he didn't include the phrase "complete shutdown" in the EO.
And your Trump supporting friends may be the nicest people around according to you, but again, we hear the message loud and clear from Trump, and all we hear from Trump's base in opposition to Trump's blatant and sustained racism is hand wringing and capitulation. You included. "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing". We need to start listening to our inspirational posters, because they hold more wisdom than the average American mind.
And by the way, it's not fear mongering when you've personally experienced threatening behavior from people wearing symbols such as confederate flags, nazi swastikas, and more often as of late, red MAGA caps. And these symbols tend to come in clusters. They tend to co-mingle. Why is that? They're not exactly championing the flying spaghetti monster. Maybe it's because the symbols they champion each promise to systematically favor their race by erecting prejudiced power structures? Certainly true of the confederate flag. Certainly true of the Nazi swastika. You don't see how MAGA caps fall right in with a long line of racist symbology?
Every day on the internet you can read a new tweet from a Trump supporter kindly suggesting all brown people to leave the country #MAGA. Please note again they're not attaching #FSM to their Tweet. They chose #MAGA. Why is that? Why are people who want all brown people to leave the country drawn to #MAGA. What does it represent to them? And not just one tweet, you could spend all day reading new tweets saying the same thing, day in and day out. Those attitudes are spilling over into real life. It is pervasive for some people. All day, every day. I would love to edit my world to remove that constant background drone of hate, but I can't do that. I can't have that because every time someone stands up, someone else tells them to sit down, and deal.
What I can do is find little pockets of respite in this world where, I'm less likely to encounter such negativity, and call it out when I see it. Prolog technical documents are no place for riffs on political slogans and especially no place for what many people perceive as coded racist language. No one here is even arguing against those points -- instead the argument seems to revolve around whether or not MAGA is a racist phrase, which seems to sidestep the entire consideration that many people do in fact perceive it as a racist phrase.
