Los Angeles officials have asked that suppliers of computer equipment stop
using the terms "master" and "slave," saying such terms are offensive. The
terms are sometimes used in reference to computer equipment.
It is unclear whether the official policy applies to the words "Mr." and
"Mrs." (Mister and Mistress) which are forms of "Master."
It is unclear whether the official policy applies to the words "Slav" or
"Slavic," the origin of the word "slave."
News outlets reported that a "discrimination complaint" alleged "offended
sensitivities." The media did not report whether any Slav or the descendant
of a Slav made the complaint. No one asked the Slavic community for comments
at all.
If it hasn't been done already, a complaint can be filed against the terms
"Mr." and "Mrs." and "Slav" so that Los Angeles officials can expand their
policy.
Reporters recounted that in 2000, the Los Angeles city council supported
federal legislation seeking reparations for descendants of slaves. Not a
single reporter revealed how much money any Slav descendant might receive,
nor even whether the Slavic community supports the legislation.
The word "slave" has the etymological root "Slav" because Slavs were often
enslaved. "Slavic" refers to a lot of people, including Caucasian, Slovak
(Czechoslovakian), Slovene (Slovenia & parts of Austria & Italy), Polish,
Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Whites were enslaved around the world -- especially the Slavs, from whom the
word is derived in both European languages and in Arabic.
According to the syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell, white slaves were still
being bought and sold in Egypt years after the Emancipation Proclamation had
freed many blacks in the United States.
Not only does slavery predate the U.S., slavery is a practice that
socialists and communists perpetuated well beyond the end of slavery in the
U.S., perpetuating slavery even into the 1950's, arguably beyond.
In addition to employing slavery, socialists and communists also employed
genocide, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Communist China and
the National Socialist German Workers' Party, slaughtered the most people,
in that order.
For more on etymology see
http://members.ij.net/rex/wordsmain
Rex Curry
For more from Rex Curry, see
http://rexcurry.net
